Chapter 7 #2
“Oh, yes. Augustus has more money than Midas, and it’s not exactly a tourist attraction, so he’s never bothered charging admission fees. The land has been in his family for generations, and he’s quite—quite—proud of his family’s history and their place in Eastshore’s story.”
Smiling, I slid my phone back into the pocket of my stretchy pants. “Then it’s a plan. I’ll go visit this afternoon. Any other suggestions of places I can learn more history?”
Patti was definitely my soul sister—aunt? Grandmother?—because she had a list as long as my arm. When I left her to prepare for afternoon tea, I decided to focus on the places she’d mentioned in town first.
It was late afternoon when I stumbled back to my car, ready to drive out to the lighthouse location.
To my consternation, it took three tries to get it to turn over, and each time my heart was in my throat, praying it would start.
When it finally did, I exhaled in relief.
It wasn’t the first time it had happened, and each time I found myself praying the car would last just a bit longer.
Driving around Eastshore was just as much fun as walking around it, and I reached the north side of the island before I knew it.
The GPS steered me right to the turnoff, which had a homemade sign with an arrow pointing toward the lighthouse.
Just as Patti had promised, the parking lot was tucked up against it, and empty except for construction equipment.
My heart began to speed up. Construction equipment around a lighthouse? This was something I knew.
Glad to have the place to myself, I slammed my car door and hurried across the parking lot, already tipping my head back to stare up at the lighthouse.
It was on the small side—being perched on a sandstone bluff, it didn’t need to be tall—short and squat, only about thirty feet tall.
The light itself was electric now, but I could see where it had replaced the old oil one a hundred years ago.
The whole building likely dated from the early 1800s, based on what I knew of New England lighthouse architecture, assuming it followed the same patterns…
The front door was locked, to no surprise, but I could see everything I needed from out here. Slowly, I circled the building, taking photos of everything I could see, remembering the fun I had that summer on Cape Cod, and listening to the sounds of the crashing waves far below.
It wasn’t until I reached the far side of the lighthouse that I realized I wasn’t hearing all waves; there was a backhoe moving piles of dirt off to one side of the lighthouse. I frowned at it, my attention darting between those piles and the edge of the bluff…too close.
Oh no.
I sighed, understanding what I was seeing.
Just like the lighthouses on Cape Cod, and all up and down this coastline, climate change meant faster erosion, which threatened important historical buildings.
This lighthouse had likely been built some distance from the bluff, but the last two hundred years of erosion meant it was in very real danger of destabilizing the foundation, and eventually even falling into the water.
There were so many historic lighthouses which had just…disappeared in the early 1900s because of this erosion. And now it was happening faster. At least the owner of the Eastshore Lighthouse had enough sense to do something about it.
“Hey!”
I was startled out of my examination of the foundation by a distant voice. Confused, I glanced around.
“Hey, get away from there! Shit’s unstable!”
I saw the figure climbing out of the excavator, waving his hand, just as I recognized his voice. I found myself stumbling away—not because of the threat, but because of who it was coming from.
There was a moment when Brakkor realized it was me. I saw him hesitate, then he lowered his arm and burst into a legit run to reach my side.
“Joss?” He barreled to stop in front of me, his brow furrowed as his gaze darted over me. “Are you alright? What are you doing here?”
“Of course I’m alright.” Deciding to pretend like Friday night hadn’t happened, I gestured over my shoulder to the lighthouse. “This is my jam. I wanted to come see it before it was moved.”
Brakkor’s mouth tugged into a frown, and he glanced over my shoulder for a moment, before snapping his gaze back to mine, as if he couldn’t look away. “Moving a lighthouse? What makes you think that’s happening?”
What? I frowned and twisted, half to look around me and half to avoid his gaze. There were pieces of construction equipment waiting to be put to use—bags of cement, loads of cinderblocks, a few pallets of bricks.
With a sinking feeling, I realized there were no cranes or lifts.
“You’re not moving it?” I whispered.
Brakkor had moved up beside me, but I could feel him watching me instead of the building. “Nope. I work for Butch Holdings, and Mr. Frapp hired us to shore up the building’s foundation. We’re going to disguise it as a patio—I guess that’s what it’s called.”
I was already shaking my head. “No, no, that’s entirely inaccurate, historically speaking.
The area around the site”—I gestured to the large grassy area between the building and the bluff—“is a goldmine of archaeological information. You only have a few years to excavate it before you lose it all, and if you pour cement over it, you’re losing that and delaying the inevitable. ”
In my distress—honestly, they were going to bury two hundred years of history under concrete!—I’d turned to him, trying to make him understand. His expression had softened, and now he shrugged.
“Sorry, Kitten, not my ballgame. Korrad got orders from the top, and those come from the owner. We start tomorrow.”
I could feel the tears pricking behind my eyes. “Damn,” I whispered, swinging my gaze back to the lighthouse, which would most certainly crumble in a few years as its foundation continued to destabilize. “Who signed off on that? Do you have a staff archeologist?”
He didn’t answer, and after a few moments of wrestling with myself—did I want the temptation of looking at him?—I gave in and peeked back at Brakkor.
His dark gaze looked different than Friday night, and it took me a moment to realize there was a spark of green in the center of each eye. Must be the bright sunshine. He was frowning at me, so I frowned back.
“You look good enough to eat, Kitten.”
My eyes widened at his words; it wasn’t any better than walking down the street and having some guy catcall me. But with Brakkor, I could see his intensity, see that he was thinking about that night in the hotel.
The night that he wanted to be only once.
That he was claiming otherwise now was just another case of a guy trying to manipulate me into having sex again.
Brakkor had made it clear he only wanted one thing from me, and I’d be a fool to believe differently now, just because I was here and we were both horny.
And I was done with being a fool.
I wheeled about and marched toward the parking lot.
“Joss! Shit, Jocelyn!” He hurried after me.
When I reached my car, I wrapped my anger around me and swung on him. “What?”
“I’m sorry.” When he realized what he said, he winced, rocked back on his heels, and dragged his hand through his hair. “Fuck, that was weak. I mean…” Shaking his head, he crossed his arms and stared at a point over my head. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Which part? “You suck at apologies.”
I sensed his surprise when he dropped his gaze briefly to me. His lips twitched, and he looked back over my head. “Yeah, I do. But you made your opinion of me clear, and I was a dick to bring up…you know.”
I was blushing, wasn’t I? My anger was slowly leaking away as I fiddled with the handle to the sedan’s door. “I don’t dislike you, Brakkor, I just…”
His nostrils flared. Without looking at me, and with a hard voice, he prompted, “You just what?”
Sighing, I yanked open the door. “You were very clear what you wanted from me. We had an agreement.” I slid into the sedan. “I don’t want to be hurt again.” The murmured confession slipped free as I pulled the door closed.
From the way his gaze dropped to mine through the window, I knew he heard it, and cursed myself.
My fingers fumbled for my keys, which I’d left in the cupholder. Yep, my car was old enough to need real-life keys. Took me two tries to insert them, and I gripped the wheel, staring straight ahead, as I turned them, praying the engine would catch on the first or second try.
The engine, apparently, wasn’t feeling particularly generous today, because it did jack shit. Didn’t rumble, didn’t turn over, nothing. I glanced at the key, tried three or four more times, and dropped my forehead to the steering wheel with a groan as I admitted the truth.
My car had finally—finally—died on me, and had chosen the most humiliating time to do so. Brakkor was standing outside my window, still watching me. I had three hours until sunset and four hours until the last ferry of the day, and I was stranded on the remote edge of Eastshore Isle.