Chapter Six
Andrew
For some reason, Andrew still felt light as eiderdown as they returned to his place, though walking into the depressing apartment
above the Stormhaven carriage house definitely put a damper on his mood.
The place wasn’t terrible. It would probably be a decent place for a single guy on his own. Not for a dad with two active
children. A guy who also needed his own writing space.
“I’m hungry,” Finn said. “What’s for dinner?”
He thought of the nearly empty refrigerator and the equally bare pantry shelves. He needed to get to the grocery store again,
since the few staples he had bought a week ago were running out.
They couldn’t continue to eat takeout or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every meal.
He had hoped to hire a housekeeper by this point, someone who could cook and clean and help out with the kids when he needed
it, but Andrew didn’t feel as if he could hire someone until things were more settled in their lives.
Would that day ever come? Right now it seemed a world away. Andrew felt as if his whole life was on hold.
“How about if I order pizza?” he finally said. Could he be more of a single dad cliché right now?
“Yay!” Finn exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air as if he had won his second grade spelling bee.
“Yum,” Zara said. “Can you order half cheese for me?”
Unlike her brother, Zara could be a picky eater sometimes, yet another reason he wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about cooking.
“You bet,” he said.
He made the call to the better of the two pizza places in town—yes, they had tried both—and was unloading the dishwasher when
he heard a knock on the door.
Andrew frowned. That couldn’t possibly be the pizza. He had only ordered it ten minutes earlier. The place was fast but not
that fast.
“I’ll get it.” Finn raced to the door and flung it open before Andrew could caution him.
He seriously needed to have another talk with both of his kids about exercising a little common sense. He didn’t want to scare
them but he had already experienced a few security concerns because of overenthusiastic fans. One of the improvements he was
planning to Stormhaven was a state-of-the-art security system and eventually a high fence to encircle the property.
He didn’t consider himself a celebrity whatsoever, but he had two children to think about. It would only take one rabid fan
to upset their entire world.
To his relief, this time they had nothing to worry about. His mother walked through the door with a bright smile.
“Oh good. You’re home. I thought I saw you walking back here from the beach.”
Nancy only lived three houses away, in the opposite direction from Rosie Lucas’s house. He suspected that proximity was the
main reason she had worked so hard to persuade him to purchase Stormhaven.
In her cozy Craftsman cottage, his mother had a lovely view of Crescent Beach and the ocean beyond. He couldn’t begrudge her
that. She deserved any peace she could find after years of pandering to his father’s controlling demands.
“We’re here. I just ordered pizza. Have you eaten?”
“No. Pizza sounds delicious, if that was an invitation.”
“Consider yourself invited.”
She gave a sunny smile. “Thank you. How was your walk on the beach? Did I see you talking with someone?”
He again questioned the wisdom of moving into the same town as his mother, especially if she was going to be so watchful over
his every move.
“We bumped into Rosie Lucas. Our contractor. You know. The one who was supposed to have this house done before we got here.”
His mother looked guilty.
“I’ve told you over and over how sorry I am about that. I really thought things would be further along, or I would never have
told you the house would be ready at the end of the school year. I underestimated how much work would be involved.”
An understatement of epic proportion. And he had been too busy trying to dig himself out of the hole he had created for himself
to pay any attention.
“Rosie is a lovely woman, though. Don’t you agree?”
He gave his mother a suspicious look, hoping she wasn’t looking to do any matchmaking in that direction. “She seems very nice.
But I’ve only met the woman twice. Once at the bookstore in town and today on the beach.”
“I expect you’ll see more of her. Rosie is very involved in the community. She’s on the board of directors of the library
and volunteers every year to help with our holiday festival.”
“She invited us to a party. Some neighborhood thing.”
“Oh good! I was going to mention that to you. I’m so glad she did. I know how you are about big gatherings of people. You
would much rather be home with a book, wouldn’t you?”
He could not argue, so he only shrugged.
“That might be your own preference but you should think about Zara and Finn. They need to get to know the other children in
the neighborhood. What better chance than a party like this?”
“That’s what Rosie suggested,” he answered.
“Grandma, guess what we saw down at the beach?” Zara said. “A sea slug that looked like it had on a frilly dress. Rosie said
it’s a frosted nudibranch.”
“Is that right?”
“And I found this shell. Isn’t it cool?” Finn held out the sand dollar.
His mother dutifully admired the shell as well as the agate that Zara had picked up on the beach.
The doorbell rang soon with the pizza and he grabbed it, paying the driver and adding a generous tip.
He had delivered pizza himself when he was in college, after he had refused to let his father pay his way when William Morgan
had declared no son of his would waste his money earning a worthless English degree.
The next few minutes were busy setting out plates, finding drinks, grabbing some precut veggies and fruit out of the refrigerator
for the kids so that he didn’t feel like a complete failure of a parent.
No, he corrected. He would never be a complete failure. He loved both of his children and tried hard to make sure they knew
it. He certainly made plenty of mistakes but he would never let his children spend one moment feeling as if they would never
be enough.
When they finished devouring nearly all of the pizza, the kids asked if they could stream a new episode of their current favorite
cartoon.
“After you load your dishes into the dishwasher.”
They both sighed as if he had asked them to reshingle the entire roof of Stormhaven in the middle of a heavy rain but hurried
to comply so they could enjoy their limited screen time to the fullest.
“How’s the book coming?” his mother asked when the children left the small kitchen.
Andrew couldn’t quite manage to get across to his mother how much he disliked talking about his work in progress.
“It hasn’t been easy,” he admitted. “I feel like I’m climbing a mountain that keeps growing taller as I go. Hopefully I will
feel more in control once the kids start their day camps next week.”
“I’m so glad they have that to look forward to this summer,” Nancy said. “Remember how much you and Will enjoyed summer camp?”
His older brother had been in his element at the sleepaway camp in upstate New York the Morgans had always been sent to. Popular
and vivacious, William Jr. had never struggled to make friends. He had invariably been right in the middle of the action,
planning mischief, devising fun games, having swim races.
Andrew, on the other hand, had hated every moment of it. He had silently cried himself to sleep every night, missing his bed,
his room, his books.
But he had only been eight the one and only year he had endured sleepaway camp. Later that year when they had returned to
their lake house for the final few weeks of summer, his brother had gone out in the early morning for a swim and never made
it back.
He pushed away the difficult memories and realized his mother had continued speaking.
“The children have art camp first, don’t they?” she asked.
“That’s right. Art camp for a week then nature camp, drama camp and sports camp.”
“How delightful for them. They should make plenty of new friends, plus it will give you some time during the day to write.”
He sincerely hoped so since he was trying hard not to panic about his deadline.
“Have you thought more about hiring someone to help you with them?”
“I’m planning to start looking, but I probably won’t hire anyone until the house is done.”
“That makes sense. I hope you know I’m here to help you as much as I can, though. I can pick them up after camp and even take
them back to my place for a few hours to give you more time, if you would find that useful.”
Impulsively, he hugged his mother. While his father had disdained his writing aspirations, Nancy had been invariably supportive.
She stayed long enough to help him put away the rest of the pizza and wipe down the kitchen, then left amid a flurry of kisses
and hugs.
Nancy truly did seem to be thriving here in Wood Briar. He wasn’t sure how much of that was from her surroundings and how
much stemmed from her finding her own way out of his father’s shadow after his death.
He sincerely hoped he and his children would find a similar peace here eventually.
He was gearing up for a long night of work at the kitchen table when he went into Finn’s room to tuck him in. He found his
son sitting up in his bed, gazing at the fragile sand dollar he had found.
“Are you planning to sleep with that thing?” Andrew asked gently. “Maybe you ought to set it on your bedside table so you don’t crush it in the night.”
“Did Mom like going to the ocean?”
He caught his breath at the quiet question. Finn had been so very young when his mother had first been diagnosed, a sweet,
chubby preschooler with energy that could power an entire city block.
He had been four when she died. Finn hardly remembered the bright, laughing, joyous woman Tracy had been before her diagnosis.
Andrew hated that Finn’s memories were mostly hospital rooms, oxygen masks, and a mother too frail and fragile to play much
with him.
“Do you think Mom would like it here in Oregon?”
“I am sure of it. What about you? Are you liking it?”
“I liked looking in the tide pools today. That was fun. And I like Rosie and Olive. They’re nice.”
After he finished tucking in Finn, he checked on Zara, who was rereading one of her favorite horse books.
“Did you have a good day, kiddo?”
“I guess. The pizza was good. I really love Rosie’s dog, Dottie. She’s so cute. Can we get a dog?”
At least she wasn’t asking to get a horse. Yet. “Maybe once we’re moved into the main house,” he said.
After kissing her good-night, he headed into the kitchen to set up his laptop. Rosie had apparently made a big impression
on his children. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
She had also made an impression on him. He definitely knew he wasn’t thrilled about his instinctive reaction to her. What
was it about the woman that intrigued him so much? She didn’t like his books. That alone should be enough to keep her at arm’s
length.
Despite that, he liked her, far more than he should.
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts of Rosie. He had too many other things to worry about. He was woefully behind
schedule, and the pressure was mounting. Every day that passed without significant progress only ratcheted up the stress.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he pushed thoughts of warm green eyes and a quick wit from his mind. He had a story
to tell, characters to bring to life. That was his priority. It had to be.
Taking a deep breath, he began to type, the gentle tapping of keys filling the quiet kitchen. As the words began to flow,
he felt a sense of relief wash over him. This was what he needed to concentrate on. His work, his family, his new life here.
Everything else, including any budding interest in a certain auburn-haired neighbor, would have to wait. He had responsibilities,
deadlines and two young lives depending on him. Those were the things that truly mattered, and he couldn’t afford to lose
sight of that.