Chapter Four
“H ow are your drinks?” Logan checked in with Art and Emma’s mother, Delta. They were seated in lawn chairs, watching the children throw hoops at pegs.
“Would you put water in this for me, please, Logan?” Delta handed him her empty wine glass. “I’ll be asleep before dinner if I have more wine.”
She was an older version of Emma, a little plumper, a little more formally dressed, with a distinctively stronger New Zealander accent.
He filled her glass with ice water and fetched himself a beer from the downstairs fridge, bringing one for Sophie who was too busy playing with the children to take it. He brought it up to where Reid stood at the barbecue on the deck off the kitchen.
“Thanks.” Reid drained the one in his hand and cracked the new one.
“Tough day?”
“No, it’s fu—Freaking hot standing here.” He sent a glance to the kids below, but they were too wound up with excitement to hear his almost curse.
“Where’s Em?” Logan looked toward the kitchen.
“Changing Storm.”
“She calmed down yet?”
“Still pretty clingy.”
“Which one are we talking about?”
“Yup.” The corner of Reid’s mouth kicked up in affection as he took another gulp of beer.
It was hard to tell who had missed whom the most. Storm had been cranky the last few days, fully aware that her favorite human was absent. Reid had been, too.
Logan had brought the baby down to the wharf when the seabus from Bella Bella had come into the cove a couple of hours ago, joining Reid who had poorly disguised his eagerness to see his wife and meet her family.
Reid had restrained himself to a kiss, but the moment Storm saw Emma, she had burst into tears. Emma had done the same as she gathered up her defacto daughter and kissed her cheeks as though she planned to eat her for lunch.
“Oh, moppet, I missed you, too,” Emma had sniffled as she rubbed the baby’s back. “I’m sorry I left. Meet your nana and cousins.”
Storm had clung to Emma’s neck, refusing to look at new people. She had only picked up her head once to give Emma the most hilarious scold of a sad face before hugging her again.
Since Reid was busy trying to make a good impression on his new mother-in-law, Logan took control of the luggage, getting everything into the company vehicle. He let Reid drive Emma and her mother up to the house with Storm while he walked the two kids up the drive. They were a riot, speaking in their broad Kiwi accents.
“You guys sound just like your Auntie Em, you know that?”
“Auntie Em sounds funny,” Imogen assured him. “More like you.”
Delta seemed pleasant enough, if given to tensing her upper lip in judgment while she took in the home her daughter had chosen over returning to New Zealand.
It was a hell of a lot nicer than it had been when Logan and his brothers had arrived in April, Logan wanted to tell her. Between them, they’d put in a new kitchen, refinished, refloored, repainted, and repaired everything that needed it, not necessarily in that order. They’d knocked out the trees impeding the view and got the moss off the roof and out of the cracks between the tiles on the patio where Delta currently sat.
They’d done all of that believing they would sell this house along with the resort. Then, for Storm’s sake, Reid and Emma had decided to marry and stay here until the adoption went through. Since they all considered it Storm’s home, Logan and Trystan endorsed their living here.
It would have eventually worked out, providing Storm exactly the same strong financial start that Wilf had given his sons, but this news about Tiffany’s sister had thrown everything into flux. He wished they could at least learn her intentions. The uncertainty was stressful for all of them.
“Hey, you’re back.” Emma came out with Storm on her hip, placemats in her other hand. “Can you take her while I set the table?”
Storm turned her face away from him when he reached for her and snuggled tighter into Emma.
“I guess I’m setting the table,” Logan said wryly as he took the placemats. “You go visit with your family.”
“Thanks.” She seemed to hesitate briefly, expression pensive, then went down the stairs where she pulled up a chair near Art and her mother.
“Problem?” Logan asked Reid in a low voice.
“Her mother is being weird about the adoption,” Reid said under his breath. “Didn’t appreciate being called Storm’s ‘nana.’”
“Oh Christ. Can’t her family let her be happy?”
Reid’s brows lifted in a silent amen .
Emma was enjoying her niece and nephew, though. The next time Logan came outside, Storm was in Sophie’s arms—the little traitor—while Emma played tag with the kids, laughing it up.
“Did you get that inventory straightened out?” Reid asked.
“Hmm? Oh yeah, but I don’t know what I’m going to do about that store. Anyone can ring through a purchase and stack shelves. Even Kenneth,” Logan insisted when Reid sent him a look. “This is his first job. He’s gonna screw up, but he’s keen, and he shows up.”
Reid nodded acknowledgment of what a feat that was for some.
“The bigger issue is that I spend all day walking down there to talk to someone who wants to save money by doing the repair themselves but treats me like their personal YouTube tutorial. We need someone in the store who has a clue what all the parts are for and can give tips on how to make quick fixes.”
A metaphoric light bulb went off between them. They both stepped up to the rail and peered down at Art.
“You think?” Reid asked.
“No harm in asking,” Logan said.
Reid nodded and opened the lid on the barbecue, then went back to the rail, calling down, “Who wants cheese on their burger?”
“I’m a vegetarian,” Biyen stopped playing to say.
“Yeah, I know, bud. Your mushroom burger is here. You want cheese on it?”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay. You kids want to come and get your buns ready?”
“What’s a vegetarian?” Cooper asked as he trailed Biyen up the stairs.
“I don’t eat meat that comes from animals,” Biyen explained. “Only fish if me and my dad catch it ourselves. Except, one time, Trystan gave me some sausage made from a bear. My dad said that’s okay because it was hunted responsibly.”
“You ate part of a bear?” Imogen’s face twisted into incredulous revulsion.
“Just one time.”
“Is your dad a vegetarian?” Logan asked Biyen as he came to the table.
“Uh-huh. But we have eggs if they come from happy chickens.”
Sophie was still holding Storm as she came up the stairs behind the kids. She sent him a cool look.
Logan got the message and dropped it, but he was really curious how she’d wound up with someone who seemed so different from her.
“Who needs help with their bun?” Logan asked. “Cooper? What do you like on your burger?”
*
Gramps was known for accepting any dinner invitation and for leaving almost immediately after he’d eaten. He drove home in his Gator while Sophie was helping Emma in the kitchen.
Delta was still shaking off the cross-Pacific travel so she retired to her room to unpack and have an early night. Reid and Logan were splitting their attention between sports highlights and Storm on her mat with her toys. The bigger kids came in from outside as Sophie put the last dry dish in the cupboard.
“Can we have screen time, Auntie Em?” Imogen asked. “I want to show Biyen something really funny.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. It’ll have to wait,” Sophie said before Emma could respond. “It’s a school night for Biyen. We have to get home and get ready for bed.”
“Awuh.” Biyen stuck his lip out.
“I know,” Sophie commiserated. “You should ask Mrs. Yuki if you can bring Imogen and Cooper one day. They might think it’s interesting to see a Canadian classroom.”
“We didn’t bring our uniforms,” Imogen said.
“Kids here don’t wear uniforms,” Emma told her. “Some schools have them, but it’s not as common as at home. Look.” Emma pointed at the fridge, inviting Biyen to view the kids’ school photos stuck there beneath magnets shaped like ladybugs.
“Isn’t it Fun Day this week, buddy?” Sophie recalled. “When it gets to be end of year, they have a day outside where they play silly games like an egg and spoon race,” she explained to the other kids. “Everyone gets an ice cream and a sunburn. I think I’m supposed to be a volunteer,” she recalled with a sense of mild panic. Quinley Banks, head of the Parent Advisory Committee, would never let her hear the end of it if she missed it. Over her shoulder, she said, “Logan, I need a day off, but I don’t know which one.”
“We don’t give days off. You know that.” He rose and stretched, then swept up his baby sister. “Nighty night, nutty nut.”
Storm shoved her slobber-coated teething ring against his mouth, but he only made a slight face of disgust before kissing her cheek and plopping her onto Reid’s lap.
Sophie had a brief flash of, This could have been our life. It was a very domestic moment, with everyone saying good night and Reid and Emma negotiating a bathing rotation for all the children as they left.
The walk home might have become awkward at that point, but Biyen chattered the whole way, providing a diary of his run up to summer.
“And then on Friday, Dad will come and take me camping in Rum Runner Cove. That’s where the smugglers went when—what’s it called, Mom?”
“Prohibition.”
“Right. When alcohol was illegal. I found a fossil there, once. It was just a fern. Er, a palm frond? I have it in my bedroom and can show you. Did you ever go camping there when you were my age?”
“What age is that? Sometimes I think you’re older than I am,” Logan said.
“Mom says that, too.” Biyen snickered and stuck his hand in hers, definitely still her little boy for a little longer. “Did you?”
“Go camping? No, we didn’t do things like that. Too much work to be done around here.” His voice was even, his profile difficult to read in the light of the half moon.
“Trystan did. He told me,” Biyen said.
“Trystan went camping with his mother and her relatives. I always stayed here with my mom and dad. You know Glenda, don’t you? She’s my mom and she used to be married to our dad, Wilf.”
“Uh-huh. I know.”
Sophie’s heart panged as she had a flashback to those times when Reid and Trystan were absent, visiting their mothers. Logan had always struck her as very lonely at those times, relegated to painting at the lodge or sweeping in the machine shop or filling potholes with gravel, struggling under the weight of a shovel.
“Sometimes I wish my mom and dad lived together,” Biyen said.
Sophie’s breath rushed out as that knife went in.
“You were only joking about not giving Mom a day off for Fun Day, right?”
“I was joking, yes,” Logan confirmed.
“Good. I’ll get the fossil to show you.” He ran into the house as they neared the porch.
“Does he ever wind down?” Logan asked wryly.
“You wanted to stay in that playroom. You’re free to make other choices.”
“I wasn’t complaining, just asking.”
Biyen’s crashing entry had woken Gramps where he had fallen asleep in his recliner.
“You’re back.” He patted a yawn.
“We are. Did you take your blood pressure pill, Gramps?” Sophie checked the pill dispenser marked with the days of the week and found his pill inside the section marked Sunday.
She brought it to him with a glass of water, then interrupted Biyen who was determined to leaf through every page of his fossil book.
“You can show Logan the rest tomorrow, champ. You need to hit the shower. Your feet are filthy enough to grow potatoes between your toes.”
“Peas,” he corrected. “My toes are too little for potatoes.”
“And then the vines would climb all over you!” She came up behind him and attacked with tickling hands down his front, making him wiggle and giggle.
When she released him, he slapped the book closed and went into the bathroom, turning to yell from the door, “Are my shark bajamas clean?”
He still called them bajamas with a b .
“I’ll get them.” She ran down to the basement for the basket of fresh laundry and came back to set his pajamas on the lid of the closed toilet, catching him singing George Ezra’s Shotgun .
When she came back to the kitchen, she overheard Gramps saying, “Hell, no. I’m not climbing into a bilge at my age.”
“I was thinking the hardware store.”
“Sophie said you hired Eunice Houstie’s grandson.”
“We did. He’s keen, but green. We need someone to train him.”
“I’m no help with computers, son.”
“No, the practical stuff. He can read a label and find parts on a shelf, but he doesn’t know what they’re for. We need someone who can tell a customer, ‘Yeah, that will work,’ or ‘No, you need a three-eighths.’ It doesn’t have to be full-time. Any hours you could spare would be a big help.”
Gramps took off his glasses to give them a polish with the cloth he kept beside him. “What are you paying?”
“What do you want?
“Cash.”
“That could be arranged,” Logan said dryly.
“What do you think?” Gramps slipped his glasses back on and looked over them to where Sophie was folding laundry on the kitchen table.
She thought it sounded like a healthy way to get him out of the house. Sometimes it seemed like he didn’t leave his chair all day.
“You know locals will start treating the shop like a drop-in center,” she warned Logan. “The old-timers will come in to jaw-wag with him, but won’t buy anything.”
“More chance for him to be there when he’s needed.” Logan shrugged that off.
“Why don’t you try it and see if you like it?” she suggested to Gramps.
“I’ll have to leave in time to be here for Biyen, when he gets home from school.”
“He can meet you at the shop and catch a lift in your rig. Hell, put him to work,” Logan said. “How old were any of us when you set us to sorting nuts from bolts?”
“You little shits were trouble. You needed something to do.”
“That’s a true fact,” Logan agreed. “Is there any chance you could come in for an hour tomorrow, though? I have to do Reid’s rounds at the lodge while he takes Emma’s family around the island.”
“An hour’s not worth leaving the house for,” Gramps scoffed. “I’ll be there when I get there and leave when I’m ready.”
“Perfect.” They shook on it.