Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
Simon
It was official. She was trying to kill me. The sight of her with the sun shining on her wavy curls, her big blue eyes framed by thick dark lashes, and her full lips parted as if in invitation, she might as well rip my heart out of my chest and put it in her pocket.
What was I supposed to do here? We were on opposite sides of what to do with this house in which we would be cohabiting for another five weeks.
If we got involved, she would suspect I was doing it to manipulate her into selling the cottage.
Then again, how did I know she hadn’t kissed me for the same reason, to convince me not to sell? I didn’t.
Until we reached a mutually-agreed-upon outcome, where we both got what we wanted with the cottage, there was simply no way we could get involved without one of us getting hurt. And only an idiot would lust for a woman in this situation. Clearly, I was an idiot.
I shook my head and said, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
She turned away from me to watch Dude in the grass. He’d found his ball and was now lying on his back holding the ball with his paws. He dropped it into his mouth and then grabbed it with his paws and did it again, delighting in the laziest game of fetch ever.
Hannah cleared her throat. Bright splotches of pink filled her cheeks. Adorable.
“What I meant was there’s no need to be sorry. I didn’t mind…” Her voice trailed off and she gestured to her lips. “It was no big deal.”
No big deal? Seriously? The feel of her mouth against mine had hit me with enough volts of electricity to bring me back from the dead, and I’d seen her face. She’d had the half-lidded sultry look of a woman who was feeling the same pull I was.
“Okay.” I nodded. “Just so we’re clear. I want you to know you’re perfectly safe with me.”
A vulnerability crossed over her face that told me more than any words could that she had been hurt very badly. The expression was gone almost as fast as it appeared but there was a lot more to Hannah Spencer than she was letting on and I had under five weeks to figure out what it was.
“I know that. I do.” She gave me a mischievous side-eye and said, “Plus, T-shirt cannon.”
I smiled and it occurred to me that I had done more talking with her in a few weeks than I had with any woman other than my sister in a year. I wanted to touch her again but I kept my hands to myself and said, “Last one back to the house mows the lawn.”
She yelped and began to run. The dock was narrow enough that if I wanted to pass her, I’d have to knock her into the water. Instead, I held back, enjoying the sight of a pretty girl jogging up the planks ahead of me, determination in every stride. She came in first, but I felt as if I’d won.
“I did some checking on the place called the Scoop where that photo of our grandfathers was taken,” Hannah said. It was midafternoon, and after a glance at the sad state of our refrigerator and pantry, Hannah and I had agreed to run into town to stock up on groceries.
“And?” I braced myself. I was beginning to recognize Hannah’s I have news expression.
“It’s still there,” she confirmed. “The Scoop is registered as a historic landmark, still owned by the Larson family and still in operation. We should go check it out.”
She looked so excited, I couldn’t refuse. “Okay, but you know that no one is going to remember two teenaged guys from the ’60s, right?”
“I know.” She nodded. “But they might remember two older gentlemen from the past two decades. I want to see it, O’Malley. I want to see where they fell in love.”
She looked so wistful, I felt my chest tighten.
I had the foreboding feeling that if we went ahead with this there would be no turning back.
Turning back from what? I had no idea, but I knew that the deeper we went, the more we learned, the harder it was going to be to let go of our grandfathers, the house, and potentially each other.
The Scoop was perched at the base of the town pier.
Cape Split was modest in size by any standards, more of a village than a town.
There was one main road running through the center and if you blinked while driving, you’d miss it, except for the Scoop.
Painted an eye-watering shade of bubblegum pink that was in a sad state of chipped and weatherworn, the squat concrete building looked as if it had thugged its way through so many tourist seasons and hurricanes, it would stand until the end of time.
Hannah parked her van—I refused to call it Buttercup—in the first available spot.
She climbed out and opened the door for Dude.
He clambered out and she clipped his leash, although it seemed unnecessary the way he walked pressed up against her side.
I wasn’t sure if he was protecting her or vice versa, but everyone on the sidewalk gave the big boy a wide berth.
We passed several tourist shops, a charter boat office, and the entrance to the large marina.
There were restaurants—something smelled amazing—and I realized I was starving.
Maybe stopping by the Scoop was genius as it would keep me from shopping while hungry, which never worked out well.
I bought the weirdest things like a tub of dill pickles or a whole cheesecake when the hunger was on me.
A seagull perched on a nearby piling startled at the sight of Dude and leapt into the sky, calling out a warning to his feathered friends.
Hannah’s head was swiveling back and forth as she took in the picturesque village.
A narrow strip made up the town green, which had a small playground on one end that was filled with families.
A group of children were blowing soap bubbles and I thought fondly of the Fisk children, who looked like a band of lovable pirates compared to these demure little tykes.
Hannah glanced at me and said, “Can you picture Gramps here?”
I paused and she stopped beside me with Dude in between us.
I took a moment to picture Gramps from his smelly cigar to his battered fishing hat, except he hadn’t looked like that in the photo that was on the table at the house.
He’d been a bit more polished. When I’d peeked into the closet of the main bedroom, the one they had clearly shared, I’d noted that the clothes on what I assumed was his side—determined by recognizing a pair of his favorite sneakers—didn’t match the man I had known.
To me, Gramps was blue jeans, flannel shirts, and serviceable shoes.
But here, he had been polo shirts, Bermuda shorts, and sandals.
I couldn’t help but wonder which one had been the real Robert O’Malley.
I scanned the waterfront, the park, and the pier. I thought about the man in the photograph and I realized, yes, I could see that man here. I turned to Hannah and nodded. “I can. Can you see Pops?”
“Easily.” She smiled. “This place is totally Pops’s vibe.”
“I take it he was a cheerful person.” We resumed walking.
“Always.” She grinned. “He was definitely the ‘if life hands you lemons, reach for the tequila’ type.”
I could see that just in the time I’d spent with his granddaughter. She had the same fierce optimism. “That’s interesting because Gramps was more the ‘if life hands you lemons, make sure you know whose eyes to squeeze the juice into.’ ”
Hannah let out a surprised laugh. “He sounds like a character.”
“He was.” I smiled. “I miss him every day.”
Hannah leaned over Dude and pressed her shoulder against mine. Her voice was soft when she said, “I know exactly how you feel.” As we reached the pier, she stopped and turned to me. “Do you think that’s what they found in each other? Balance?”
“Maybe.” I knew I took after my grandfather with an ingrained cynicism and emotional unavailability. I couldn’t imagine spending my life with someone like me. Hannah, with her effervescent personality, certainly seemed like an antidote and I suspected Gramps felt the same way about her Pops.
The Scoop offered a dog-friendly courtyard with brightly painted picnic tables.
Hannah chose one under an umbrella that was a vibrant shade of turquoise.
A waitress with a name tag that read “Kayla” came by with two menus and paused to pat Dude on the head as he lolled on the ground at Hannah’s feet.
“They have food here, too, but the ice cream is what everyone raves about,” Hannah said. She studied the building and pulled the photograph we’d found in Gramps’s duffel bag out of her pocket. “Where do you think they were standing when this was taken?”
I took the photo from her and held it up, trying to match the view of the building in the photo to the one beside us.
There was a mural of enormous cones and bowls of ice cream with a cherry on top the size of Dude in the old photo.
The faded picture didn’t do justice to what the mural must have looked like, and the dormant artist in me wished I could have seen it back in the day.
There was no mural on the wall now, just the relentless blistering pink, but the view of the pier and the water was the same.
“I think it was over there,” I said. “See how the corner of the building matches.”
Hannah took the photo back and studied it. “You’re right. It had to be right there.” She turned to me and her eyes sparkled. “Isn’t this amazing? Almost sixty years later and we’re in the same spot where our grandfathers met and fell in love.”
Nothing about my trip to the Outer Banks had gone as expected. Certainly not the cottage, not her, and not this alternative life that Gramps had led. It was a lot to take in and, yet, Hannah’s enthusiasm was impossible to dismiss.
“It’s pretty crazy,” I agreed.
“Hi, are you ready to order?” Kayla returned with a wide smile and another pat for Dude, who was clearly smitten with the cheerful teen as he leaned into her touch as if he never received any sort of affection at home. The big faker.