Chapter Two
Two
Simon
Nothing was biting. How had Gramps spent so much time in his getaway cottage, fishing off the dock when there were no fish? It boggled.
I reeled in my line and cast again, watching the lure plop into the water. I pulled my fishing rod to the side, tugging the lure a bit, trying to entice a fish, any fish, to come and play. There was no action, i.e., no takers.
“Dude! You get back here this instant!” A shrill voice broke the silence, startling a gray heron out of the marsh. He launched into the air, beating his massive wings.
I whipped around at the sound of footsteps behind me and saw a wild-haired woman in cargo shorts and a tank top thundering down the narrow dock on the heels of a black-and-white horse—okay, more like a pony—that was headed straight for me.
I quickly set my pole in the holder on the base of the dock and crouched down, putting up my hands in surrender as if the beast barreling toward me was there to rob me.
“Whoa, whoa!” I cried. The behemoth didn’t slow down one bit. By the time it occurred to him to jam on his brakes it was too late. The beast slammed into my chest like a Mack truck and the next thing I knew I was flailing and free-falling into the channel.
The water was colder than I expected for late June, but what did I know? I hadn’t planned to go swimming. Instinctively, I started to kick up to the surface. I popped up to hear the woman, scolding her beastie.
“Dude, what were you thinking? What if there are alligators in there? That man could be their lunch.” There was a pause and then her voice took on a harsh warning note. “Dude, don’t you do it. Dude!”
I wiped the water from my face just in time to see the horse come flying at me.
His feet were pedaling in midair as if he were still running.
His tongue was hanging out and his ears flapping in the breeze.
I had only a second to take in the sight of him, realize I was his target, and try to get out of the way before he hit the surface like a wrecking ball. I didn’t make it.
The monster hit me right in the solar plexus and I plunged below the surface and sank like a rock.
The pony had knocked the wind out of me, but I’d spent enough time surfing the Carolina coastline to know not to try to breathe.
Still, blacking out was a high probability as everything started to go fuzzy.
A splash disrupted the water near me and I felt someone grab me by the collar of my shirt and haul me in sluggish yanks and tugs back up to the surface. When we broke through, my diaphragm was still locked and I couldn’t breathe.
“I think you killed him,” the woman gasped. Then she thrashed against me. “What was that? Something brushed my leg. Ah! I bet it’s an alligator!”
I would have told her to calm the hell down but I didn’t have enough air to form words. Instead, I started to slowly sink beneath the surface again.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” She yanked me back up. “I did not risk getting eaten by a prehistoric creature just to have you drown.”
Something splashed next to me and I recognized the big pink tongue as the pony swam beside us, kicking his long legs and enormous paws, without a care in the world.
I tried to suck in a breath but my chest refused to move. I could feel a thrum of panic surge through me as I flailed to get to the dock.
“It’s okay.” The woman’s voice was a husky whisper in my ear. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you drown.”
As if I would! My pride took issue with this but I didn’t have enough oxygen in my lungs to protest. My argument would have to wait.
She wrapped her arm around my torso and towed me to the lower dock where my boat was tied. The small horse was already out and bouncing on his feet, wagging as if he was having the best day ever. Jerk.
With a hearty shove, the woman rolled me onto the rough wood and then pulled herself up beside me.
“Let’s get you on your side.” With a grunt she maneuvered me into a fetal position.
Humiliating. And then she started to vigorously rub my back.
“Try to relax. You just had the wind knocked out of you. Take small breaths. It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
I managed a small sip of air and the darkness receded from my peripheral vision.
“That’s it,” she said. She kept up the circular massage and I felt my diaphragm slowly loosen, allowing me to take deeper breaths.
When I had enough air to be able to speak, I lifted my head and rasped, “I’m all right.”
“Thank goodness.” She flopped onto her back on the dock beside me and panted. “I haven’t been a lifeguard in years. I was afraid I’d lost my skills. Plus, alligators.”
I didn’t know what to say to that so I said nothing, closing my eyes as I concentrated on inflating my lungs.
“I’m sorry about this. Dude has spatial-awareness issues. He thinks he’s a lapdog and I can’t seem to dissuade him from that notion. He’s knocked the wind out of me a few times.”
I held up my hand, opened it and then closed it, hoping that she could grasp the universal sign for Stop talking. Then I dropped my forearm over my eyes while I tried to catch my breath in between coughing and wheezing.
She must have gotten the message because she said nothing. When my breathing became normal, I dropped my arm from my eyes and turned to face her.
“Lapdog? I thought he was a pony.” I glanced up to see the biggest dog I’d ever encountered standing over us. His ears were perked up and his head was cocked to the side. Was that how he looked right before he ate someone?
I pushed myself up to a seated position. The dog-horse immediately shoved his snout in my face and licked my head from chin to eyebrow. It felt like a very soggy apology but I wasn’t sure I was ready to forgive him just yet.
The woman sat up and I got my first eyeful of her.
The wild hair I’d seen when she was running toward me was now plastered to her head, revealing sun-bronzed skin, a heart-shaped face, and enormous blue eyes.
Her wet clothes were suctioned to her body, revealing a figure that was wickedly curvy.
I forced my gaze back to her face, not wanting to be the kind of man who ogled, no matter how tempting she was.
Her eyes were framed with long dark lashes, and she had an upturned nose that sported a spray of faint freckles. Her full lips were presently tipped up in one corner in an expression of exasperation as she pushed her dog away from me. “Dude, manners.”
“His name is Dude?”
“Yeah, ‘or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.’ ”
Maybe it was the lack of oxygen to my brain, but the Big Lebowski reference surprised me and I laughed. “ ‘The Dude abides.’ ”
“Nice.” She held up a fist. I glanced from it to her and back.
She was offering me a knuckle bump and a knowing smile.
It felt like a truce and I was willing, despite her dog trying to drown me, to let bygones be bygones.
I was only going to be here for a few weeks.
I didn’t have time to hold a grudge with a neighbor. I tapped her knuckles with mine.
I pushed up to my feet and offered my hand. “I’m Simon O’Malley.”
She hesitated for just a second before grasping my palm and allowing me to pull her up. “Hannah Spencer.”
“And the Dude.” I released her hand.
“We’re a package deal.” She grinned and I blinked. It was like looking directly at the sun.
Hannah twisted the end of her shirt, wringing out the excess water.
I decided to let my T-shirt and shorts drip-dry and retrieved my fishing rod.
Dude followed me and watched with his head tilted forward on his shoulders as I reeled the line in.
He seemed as disappointed as I was to find nothing on the hook.
I secured the lure and started to walk back to the house.
“Excuse me, Simon, but where are you going?” Hannah dropped her shirt and frowned at me. She’d said my name very purposefully as if she didn’t believe it was mine.
“To my house.” I pointed to Gramps’s cottage.
A look of confusion creased her brow and she shook her head, sending droplets of water in all directions. “That can’t be your house. It’s my house.”
“This is 81 Old Hickory Road.” I wondered if she’d booked a summer rental and had gotten confused about the address. These things happened.
“I’m aware,” she said. “I’m meeting my attorney here to discuss my inheritance, which is that house.”
“Your inheritance?” I shook my head. “That’s not possible. The only attorney coming here today is the one planning to speak with me about the cottage—this cottage—that my grandfather left to me.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion and she assessed me from my sodden hair to my soggy Vans. Clearly, she hadn’t planned on having me dispute her claim.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, Simon—”
“No game, Hannah.” I said her name with just as much bite. To soften my stance, I held my hands out much as I had when Dude had been bearing down on me. “I’m the grandson of Robert O’Malley, the owner of this property, who left it to me.”
“But that’s not…that can’t be…I have paperwork that says otherwise,” she countered.
We stared at each other. A sick feeling twisted in my gut.
I studied her face. She was in her late twenties or early thirties.
Not a kid—unless I compared her to my grandfather’s age of seventy-nine when he passed.
Could he have…would she have…? Ugh, my mind rebelled at the mere idea of Gramps shacking up with a woman less than half his age.
“How did you know my grandfather?” The question came out harsh. I would have softened my tone but knowing how difficult any claim she made on the property would make things for me, I felt a solid offense was my best play.
“I think you’re confused,” she protested.
“I assure you, I’m not.”
“I’m here because—”
“Ms. Spencer. Mr. O’Malley.” A voice called from the deck on the back of the house. “Good afternoon. I’m Vincent Cosmo from Cosmo, Stuart, and Kline. Sorry to have kept you waiting. I was stuck in court.”
The middle-aged white guy wore an impeccable navy suit, clearly bespoke, and a haircut so precise even the summer humidity couldn’t curl the silver buzz cut.
He waved down at us noticeably unsurprised to find us both here.
I knew in an instant this did not bode well for me or my plans for the house.
Hannah and I turned to each other with matching raised eyebrows and asked in unison, “Your attorney?”
“Yes.” We answered together.
“Interesting.” She turned and with Dude at her side walked up the dock to the house.
I said nothing, thinking I would have gone with a different word like bullshit or at the very least unexpected. What the hell had Gramps been thinking to leave anything to a woman he couldn’t have known for very long? Could he? She was young enough to be his granddaughter!
Maybe I was wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t a “relationship” relationship.
Possibly she was his cleaning lady or landscaper.
No, I’d seen the inside of the house as well as the outside.
If she was either of those things, she was terrible at them.
Still, there was no need to assume the worst. Hannah might be an elder-care volunteer or a visiting healthcare worker. It had to be something like that.
The Gramps I knew had only had one love in his life and that was Granny.
I glanced back at the water. In my mind, I could picture Gramps sitting in the same nylon folding chair he’d sat in on the sidelines of every soccer game I’d had as a kid.
All right, maybe a newer version of the chair, given that my peak soccer days were more than a decade and a half behind me.
I wondered if Gramps smoked his cigars out here while nursing two fingers of his preferred whiskey, served neat in a rocks glass.
Before she passed away when I was thirteen, Granny had made a good-natured fuss about his stinky cigars.
After she died, I’d frequently see him staring ruefully at the unlit tip of a cigar he had just trimmed and was getting ready to light, as if he missed her chiding concern.
It was shortly after Granny passed that he started taking long weekends here in Cape Split, this tucked-away peninsula on the Outer Banks.
He’d said fishing made his mind quiet, which was why he never invited anyone to join him.
I suspected that this cottage on the marsh was the place he’d grieved losing his partner of thirty-seven years.
Dragonflies darted above the water’s surface, flitting in and out of the marsh, a bullfrog croaked, and the breeze rippled through the grass in a hushed whisper.
I took a deep breath and let it fill me up before releasing it.
Was this the peace Gramps had found? Being in nature?
Embracing the quiet? I could see the appeal.
As I turned to follow Hannah and the Dude, I heard the trill of a Carolina wren.
I felt my shoulders drop as if I were letting go of my responsibilities for the first time in a long time.
Was that what Gramps had felt here? Was that why he’d never shared his cottage on the water with anyone in the family?
Had he wanted to keep this peace to himself? I couldn’t blame him.
Having just found out about the surprise inheritance two weeks ago, I had no idea what my grandfather had been thinking and wouldn’t until I met with the attorney currently greeting Hannah and her pony with obvious enthusiasm. I picked up the pace and hurried to join them.