Chapter 7 #2
He kissed the tip of her nose and then her lips. “You’re positively adorable. Let’s go see what’s got you all wound up.”
They drove to the north end of the island in Jared’s Porsche. Lizzie opened the window and took deep breaths of the cool, crisp September air. “This might be my favorite month here.”
“You say that every month.”
“I haven’t seen a month yet that I haven’t liked.”
“Wait until December.”
“When I’m marooned with you and a cozy fireplace while it snows outside? I’m not seeing the downside.”
He took hold of her hand and used their joined hands to shift the car. “I’m so glad you’re happy here.”
“I love everything about it, especially the part where I get to be married to you.”
“Sometimes, when I think about how close we came to missing out on what we have now…”
“Don’t think about that.”
“Hard not to when it was such a close call.”
“We got lucky, and the planets aligned in our favor.”
“I’ll never, ever take this for granted, Lizzie, even on days when you blast me out of bed way too early to tend to one of your big ideas.”
“That’s good to know,” she said, smiling over at him. “I worry about the day when I push you one step too far and you tell me, ‘That’s it, Elisabeth with an S. No more big ideas for you.’”
“I’m not seeing that day ever coming, as you well know, which is why you play me like a well-used fiddle to get what you want.”
“You are kind of easy,” she said with a giggle.
“Easy,” he said with an indignant huff. “I’ll show you easy when I get you back home.”
“Oh boy. I can’t wait.”
They pulled up to the building that had served as Gansett Island’s K-12 school since the seventies, and Lizzie saw right away that the abandoned school looked tired, worn and dated.
But that was nothing a little TLC couldn’t fix.
The second Jared brought the car to a stop, she got out to go peek into dirty windows.
“Be careful,” Jared said. “There might be broken glass in those weeds.”
Lizzie didn’t see the dirt or the weeds or the broken glass. She only saw the big rooms that had once housed students and might one day be rooms for elderly patients. “This is perfect,” she declared.
“You can’t tell that just by looking in a few windows.”
“It’s got good bones, and check out the size of the rooms. Come over here and look.”
Jared joined her at the window, peering inside with his hands around his eyes blocking the sunlight. “The rooms are big.”
“They’re perfect. Who can we talk to about seeing the inside?”
“You can ask your buddy Paul about that, but before you do, are you really sure you want to take this on, babe? This would be a really, really big deal, and we’ve already got a pretty big deal going on at the Chesterfield.
I thought the goal when we moved out here was to simplify our lives. This is not going to be simple.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said, her heart racing with excitement as plans came together in her mind.
“It’s going to be a huge pain in the ass, but think of the good we could do here.
Look at what Alex and Paul are going through with their mother, and David said he knows of ten other families on the island in similar straits.
We’d have the place sold out before we begin construction.
And then there’s Quinn. This could be ideal for him. ”
“That’s a whole other kettle of fish—smelly, complicated fish.”
She glanced at him. “Did you just refer to your brother as smelly fish?”
“His situation is dicey, Lizzie, as you well know.”
“This might be the sort of thing that’ll give him a new purpose in life. It wouldn’t hurt anything to ask him, would it?”
“You’re so far down the road on this, and you only had the idea last night.”
“What’s wrong with trying to make things happen?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing is wrong with it as long as you know what you’re getting into from the outset.”
“I’m well aware that this won’t be easy, but I want to do it anyway.” She withdrew her cell phone from her pocket and scrolled through her contacts.
“Who’re you calling, babe? It’s seven thirty on a Sunday.”
“Paul will be up,” she said as she placed the call, smiling at her husband, who just shook his head once again.
The ringing phone pulled Paul out of a deep, satisfying sleep.
For a second, he couldn’t figure out who was in bed with him, but then the memories of the night before came back to remind him that Hope had stayed with him.
He moved carefully so he wouldn’t disturb her and reached for his phone on the bedside table to see that Lizzie was calling him awfully early.
“Hello,” he said, taking the phone with him as he left the room, closing the door behind him.
“Hey, Paul, it’s Lizzie. I hope I’m not waking you.”
“It’s okay. What’s up?”
“Jared and I are out at the old school, and I think it’ll be perfect for what we have in mind.”
Paul was so groggy that he had to think about what they had in mind. “You’re out there already?”
“Uh-huh. Jared and I got up early to come check it out.”
“She dragged me out of bed early,” Jared said into the phone. “I told her not to call you at this hour.”
Paul laughed even as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
“How can we get inside?” Lizzie asked. “And I want first dibs on buying it.”
“You’re serious,” Paul said. The sort of facility Lizzie envisioned on Gansett Island would be an answer to a prayer for him and Alex.
“I’m dead serious.”
“She’s dead serious,” Jared said.
“Hush,” Lizzie said to her husband. “I’m conducting business here.”
“I’ll make a few phone calls and see if I can get someone out there to let you inside. Can you wait for a bit?”
“Sure, we’ve got nothing planned for today.”
Jared’s groan in the background carried through the phone.
“Something tells me you don’t speak for your husband,” Paul said, amused by her doggedness.
“He can wait on the plans for later. It’ll keep.”
“No, it won’t!” Jared said.