Chapter 14 #2
“And the reserve, Darius,” Penny continued.
“That stretch of protected wetland you are planning to clear to connect the two halves of the development. I am not just talking about the mangroves. I am talking about the birds that nest there. The species count. The natural filtration that keeps the bay water clean. What about that? There is a whole ecosystem that your project team had a botanist write a sanitized report about months ago, which you filed and have not opened since.” Her eyes narrowed.
“Is that because you don’t have any doubts and feel absolutely no guilt over it?
” She pressed. “Well, even if you don’t open it and read the reports again, in your heart you know what’s written in them. ”
Darius felt something move in his chest that he refused to let show on his face.
“The mitigation plan is solid, Penny,” Darius answered evenly.
“You have a mitigation plan on paper, Darius,” Penny challenged.
“I have a plan, Penny.” Darius’s eyes narrowed stubbornly. “Just let it be.”
“Sure. But can you just let it be?” Penny countered softly.
“I’ve known you for forty years. I have watched you walk into hundreds of properties.
I’ve never seen you walk into one and look at it the way you have been looking at this house.
I’ve never seen you reluctant to send a second letter.
And I’ve never seen you not jump at a chance to put pressure on when you know the exact pressure points to buckle your opponent. ”
“You heard me talking to Baxter!” Darius accused.
“And so what if I did?” Penny shrugged. “I’ve overheard many of your phone conversations.”
Darius let out a humorless, small laugh.
“Just because I’m not using strong-arm tactics and have been playing the long game with this project, doesn’t mean I’m changing my mind on this project, Penny,” Darius warned.
“Okay,” Penny said evenly. “But, I’m asking you to be honest with yourself, Darius. There is something about this place that doesn’t want to be changed.”
Darius drew a slow breath and turned his head toward the window.
The bay glittered beyond the glass. A small fishing boat was making its way back toward the marina. Two pelicans glided low across the water.
He thought, without meaning to, of the woman he had met that morning on the beach.
Of the warm smile she’d given him at the pizza place the night before.
Of the easy welcome she’d offered before she had known a thing about him.
Then there was the way just the mention or thought of her name made his heart jolt and pulse race.
“Oh,” Penny said, drawing his attention to her. “I met Linda at the bakery this afternoon.”
“You did?” Darius asked, with more interest than he meant to.
“Emma and I went in for cupcakes and bread,” Penny explained. “Linda came in with her family while we were paying. We chatted. She is lovely. I like her.”
“Then you should go with Isabel and Emma to the festival with her tomorrow,” Darius suggested. “You can keep an eye on my sister and great-niece to ensure Linda is a really nice person.”
“If you’re that worried about who she is or her character,” Penny said, “look her up. I found out that she is the daughter of Tom Reilly, the bakery owner.”
“Tom Reilly,” Darius repeated thoughtfully.
“Yes.” Penny nodded. “Go on then. Let’s look her up.”
Darius pulled his laptop across the desk and opened it.
“I guess this beats running an actual background check on her,” Darius said with a snort.
“Tell me you weren’t thinking of doing that?” Penny looked at him in disgust.
“No!” Darius denied. “Isabel had already warned me against it.”
“But you were going to anyway,” Penny guessed.
“No.” Darius shook his head in denial.
Penny said nothing. The look on her face was the one she had been giving him for forty years when she did not approve of a decision but would let him make it anyway. It would be his headache when the trouble came. And it always did.
Darius ignored her eyes boring into him, and he typed: Reilly’s Bakery, Sweet Blossom Bay.
The bakery’s small website came up first. It had a neat pale-blue layout.
There was a photograph of a flour-dusted man with a kind, square face standing behind the counter.
Tom Reilly, the bio read. Owner. Sweet Blossom Bay native.
Took over the family bakery from his father.
Married to Eleanor Drew-Heart Reilly. Widowed five years ago.
Darius’s eye stopped on the wife’s name.
Eleanor Drew-Heart Reilly? A frown creased his brow. That couldn’t be a coincidence could it? He remembered Linda telling them they were staying at Hearts Hotel for the summer.
He typed it into the search bar.
Eleanor Drew-Heart Reilly.
The page filled with results.
Darius scanned them quickly. There was a small local obituary and a community write-up of the bakery’s history. An article from a Sweet Blossom Bay summer feature on the women who had shaped the town’s businesses over the decades. He clicked the community write-up.
His eyes traveled the screen.
His heart stopped in his chest.
His breath caught somewhere just behind his ribs.
The page laid out the story of Eleanor Drew-Heart Reilly in calm, neat paragraphs. Her first marriage. Her two children. Her second marriage to Tom Reilly. Her work at the bakery. Her sudden death from a heart attack.
But what struck Darius the most was her family. His eyes widened. Maybe Isabel was right, and that fate had brought him here this summer for a reason. Why else would the only person he’d run into and met not once but twice in the space of twenty-four hours be Linda?
Darius’s eyes narrowed as he reread the part about Eleanor’s brother-in-law from her first marriage, George Heart, the current owner of Hearts Hotel. Her two children. The names sat on the screen in plain black letters.
The room around Darius receded.
His pulse quickened in response to the jolt of his heart. The screen narrowed down to the small black letters of a name that had been stuck in his head since the previous night.
“Darius.” Penny’s voice came from somewhere far away. He looked up from the screen to find Penny watching him from the armchair. Whatever she had seen on his face had made her sit forward. “What is it? What did you find?” Penny asked.
Darius did not answer for a moment.
He drew a slow breath, leaned back in his chair, and started to laugh. Oh yes, fate loved to play cruel games. He turned the laptop around so that the screen faced her.
“Penny,” Darius said quietly. “Meet Linda.” He raised an eyebrow. “Linda Heart. And yes, she’s related to the owner of Hearts Hotel.”
“Well,” Penny said after a few moments, sitting back and looking at him with a smug smile.
“It looks like this is going to be an entertaining summer after all.” She pushed herself to her feet.
Stopping beside him, she patted his shoulder.
“I have a feeling you’re going to be doing what I asked before the end of summer.
” He glared at her, and it only made her smile broaden.
“If I were a betting person… I’d bet a fortune on who was about to win this time.
I’d put my money on Sweet Blossom Bay and Linda Heart. ”
With that, she walked out of the study, leaving him with the sinking feeling that she was right.