Chapter Ten #2
I shook it off. I had nothing to feel guilty about. I was doing Hannah a favor by convincing her to sell. It was clear that this place was a lost cause and given that she was living out of her van, how did she expect to pay for all the work that needed to be done to make this place habitable?
Newly reaffirmed of my priorities, I strode down the dock with every intention of making peace. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
At the sound of my footsteps, Hannah held up her hand without turning around and said, “Go away.”
This did not bode well for my plan to smooth things out. “I wanted to apologize.”
“Why? Didn’t you mean what you said?”
“I did,” I said.
She whipped around to look at me with an expression of outrage.
I held up my hands and continued, “But I meant it about me. I projected my hurt feelings and confusion about my relationship with Gramps onto you and your Pops. That was unfair and I’m sorry.”
She turned away from me and I braced myself for rejection. Maybe I had gone too far. Perhaps questioning her closeness with her grandfather was an unforgivable offense. I was about to leave when she spoke.
“Don’t be sorry. You weren’t completely wrong.”
I pondered the back of her head, admiring the way the sun glinted on her hair and highlighted the different strands, from light honey gold to dark coppery brown. Wait. I wasn’t wrong?
“Are you saying I was right?”
“No, I said you weren’t wrong.”
“Which means I was right.” Why was I persisting? She was softening and I was arguing semantics. Idiot.
She turned back to me with one eyebrow raised. “Really? You’re going to keep pushing?”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “No, ma’am. ‘Not wrong’ is perfectly acceptable.”
She turned away again. I could see in the curved line of her shoulders that she was sad and I felt like an absolute dick.
Her grandfather had passed away only a month ago whereas I’d had four months to grieve for Gramps.
She was still in the thick of it and there I was making her feel like shit about how much he’d actually loved her.
I moved forward and sat down beside her, leaving a foot of space in between us so as not to crowd her. I took off my shoes and plunked my feet into the water beside hers. The cold woke me up but it also felt refreshing.
“Listen, I was wrong,” I said. “I have no idea what your relationship with your grandfather was like and I had no right to say what I did. I was angry about Gramps keeping something so important from me and I lashed out. You didn’t deserve that. I was incredibly out of line.”
She stared out at the freshwater channel that cut through the marsh. The current was moving at its usual lazy pace, swirling around our feet before continuing on. The tall grass on each side of us was rippling with the breeze, and the chatter of birds could be heard over the hum of the insects.
“You weren’t.” She shook her head. “You were honest about your feelings and if I’d been honest about my feelings instead of trying to find a positive take and pretend I was fine, I would have admitted to feeling a bit tender about Pops never mentioning Gramps—you don’t mind if I call him that, do you? ”
I waved my hand, indicating she was welcome to.
“And for the same reason,” she continued.
“I thought we were so close. I can’t believe he wouldn’t tell me about a relationship that was clearly so important to him.
I want to call my Nana and ask about all this but she and Bonus Grandpa George are on a month-long cruise with my parents.
They all wanted to get away after Pops passed.
I could have gone, too, but cruises aren’t my thing, plus that whole fifth-wheel thing. ”
“I hear that.” I nodded.
We were both silent while we pondered why our grandfathers had shut us out. Judging by the way her lips turned down in the corners, she was feeling more than tender. She looked hurt, which I inexplicably found completely unacceptable.
“Hey.” I nudged her with my elbow and in a teasing voice, I said, “If you sell to me, you can walk away from this cottage and never have to deal with all of these conflicting feelings.”
“Is that how you plan to manage it?” she countered. “Just sell it and walk away?”
“There’s nothing for me to manage. Finding out about Gramps and Pops or Bobby and Billy—still trying to wrap my head around those nicknames—changes nothing for me.” I shook my head. “I decided to sell the second I found out I’d inherited.”
“But how can you just leave when there’s so much we don’t know about their life here?” She swatted at a bug that hovered in front of her face.
“If Gramps had wanted me to know, he would have told me,” I said. “I think he left the house to me knowing I would sell it and not reveal his secret life.”
“That makes no sense.” She shook her head and I had the feeling she was disappointed in me. “He could have just left his half to my Pops and then Pops would have left it to me and you never would have known about his life here. I think he wanted you to know.”
She made a good point but I wasn’t going to be swayed. “I’m selling.”
She met my gaze and said, “I’m not.”
The impasse remained. I glanced back at the cottage, where I could just get a glimpse of the vintage bright yellow Volkswagen van parked in the driveway.
She’d mentioned that she lived in her van, traveling around the country as a sort of online travel persona.
How disappointed she must be to have thought she was finally going to have a home, only to discover that she had to share it with someone.
“This situation has to be extremely uncomfortable for you,” I said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Not any more for me than for you.” She pulled her feet out of the water and held her legs straight, letting the water drip off. “Dude seems okay with you. He likes you…unless of course you give him a reason not to and then he’ll go into protector mode, which is a lot.”
“Has he ever needed to protect you?” The thought of her in peril with just Dude to provide backup made a surge of protectiveness rush through me.
Also, I had a feeling with Dude at her side, she wouldn’t need me or anyone.
Suddenly, I wished Dude was here so I could pet his big blocky head and remind him we were pals.
“Once.” She held up one finger. “A man in a campground tried to break into my van while we were sleeping. Dude let him know that was a terrible idea.” She paused before adding, “I heard they found his missing…appendage the next day.”
I felt my jaw drop. I barely restrained the shudder that wanted to ripple through me. It was then that I saw the glint in her eye and the smirk she was visibly trying to squelch.
“Appendage? Really?” I asked.
She cackled. It should have been off-putting but instead it was such a burst of pure amusement that I found myself smiling and shaking my head.
“Well played.”
“Thank you.” She grinned. “Truthfully, there was no appendage lost or found, but the man realized the error of his ways the second Dude popped up in the window and growled at him.”
“Because Dude could actually make an appendage go missing?”
She shrugged. “The Dude abides, until he doesn’t.”
“For the record, you will absolutely never have to worry about that with me. I would offer to rent another place while we figure this out, but I doubt there’s anything available this late in the season.”
“It’s no problem.” She shrugged. “Like I said last night, between Dude and my T-shirt cannon, I feel perfectly safe.”
As if he knew we’d been talking about him, the big galoot appeared at the end of the dock and began to run toward us as if we’d been apart for days instead of minutes.
“What are the odds that he’s any better at stopping today?” I asked.
“None.” Hannah rolled over and flattened herself, belly down on the dock. She glanced at me and cried, “Get ready!”
I turned myself into a human pancake just as Dude was upon us and surprising no one, he tried to stop too late and went sailing over us, landing in the channel with a giant horse-dog-sized splash.
Hannah and I were both hit by the wave and stared at each other in shock, with our hair matted to our heads and water dripping down our faces, as the wave doused us head to toe and set the dock to rocking.
“Your face!” we said together, and then shared a laugh.
Dude took this as a sign he had done something right and he clambered back onto the dock and shook himself muzzle to tail, sending more water raining down upon us. Then he ran back up the dock to the house, having committed his havoc quota for the moment.
Hannah braced herself on her elbows and wiped the water from her face. “Do you think there will ever be a time when we’re together that we’re not wet?”
I pressed my lips together, thinking anything I said was going to be deeply inappropriate.
Hannah glanced at my face and immediately turned bright pink with embarrassment.
She slowly lowered her body back to the dock, gently thumping her forehead on the wooden planks.
I could just hear her when she muttered, “That came out so wrong.”
“Simon! Hannah!” Zach Pomeroy was standing in the side yard, next to the remnants of the tree, with Dude bounding around him. “We have your generator. We’ll set it up in the back.”
I glanced at Hannah but she was still facedown on the dock. She did lift one hand to give me a thumbs-up and I turned back to Zach and yelled, “Perfect! Thanks!”
“Come on, Spencer, it wasn’t that bad.” I crouched down beside her. “Although I want props for not saying anything.”
She lifted her head and squinted at me. “Such as?”
It was not nice of me but I just couldn’t resist trying to make her blush again. I leaned closer and lowered my voice until it was a low rumble. “I could have said, ‘No, there won’t ever be a time when we’re together that we’re not…wet.’ ”
Much to my satisfaction her eyes went wide and her face turned a mottled shade of red. She opened her mouth and closed her mouth, clearly speechless, which was incredibly satisfying. I stood and reached down to help her up. To my surprise, she took my hand without hesitation.
She rose to her feet, leaving her fingers wrapped in mine for just a beat. Then she glanced at me from beneath her lashes with a calculated look and said, “Promises, promises…oh, wait. No, it wasn’t.” She sighed long and deep as if disappointed. Well, hell.
She turned and sauntered up the dock, leaving me to appreciate the view of her curvy backside swinging back and forth as she walked away, and it felt as if the upper hand I’d just achieved had been used to slap me.
I laughed loud enough for Hannah to stop and glance at me over her shoulder.
Her smile was pure amusement without a bit of malice and damned if it wasn’t sexy as hell.
I followed her all the way up the dock and across the lawn until we reached Zach and Roland.
They were moving the generator with Dude’s “help,” so I hurried forward to give an assist. I stepped around Hannah and Dude, who was busy rekindling his bromance with Roland, judging by the way he was pressing his head up into the man’s hand.
I tried not to be offended that I was so easily replaced in the dog’s affections.
The three of us maneuvered the generator to the back of the house and then returned to where Hannah was standing with Dude beside the tree Zach had cut up.
“Hey, Hannah, this is going to sound nuts, but you’re not Van Life Girl on social media, are you?” Zach pushed his baseball cap back on his head, revealing a head of thick, light brown hair.
She looked surprised. “As a matter of fact, I am. Are you one of my followers?”
“No, but my wife is,” he said. “I told her a woman named Hannah, with a yellow van and a harlequin Great Dane named Dude, inherited Billy and Bobby’s house, and Taylor freaked out and said it had to be Van Life Girl.”
Hannah grinned and held her arms wide. “She’s right. That’s me.”
I glanced from Hannah to Zach and back. I got the distinct feeling that Hannah’s prior description of her occupation was a very tempered version of what she actually did. I was tempted to pull out my phone and do a quick search but I resisted.
“So, you’re an influencer?” I asked.
“I prefer creator.” Hannah pursed her lips. “I’m not trying to influence anyone but I do create content about the places I visit, which is what I was doing yesterday. Consistency is key. I can’t wait to do more about the area.”
I nodded, hoping I didn’t look as ill at ease as I felt. How big was her following? How far was her reach? If she shared anything about Gramps and Pops and the cottage and my father saw it, his reaction would make last night’s monster storm seem like a summer shower.