Chapter 17
Cindy Lawry wasn’t much for the bar scene, but with nothing else to do that evening, she’d found herself seated at the bar at the Beachcomber, listening to Niall Fitzgerald play his guitar and sing.
Live music was a big thing on Gansett Island, and Cindy had loved the various bands and performers who’d come through the island that summer.
She’d enjoyed everything about spending time on the island that summer, especially having her mom, brothers Owen, John and Jeff and sisters Katie and Julia around.
It’d been years since she’d lived close to that many of her family members, and she’d never lived near them without the specter of their violent, unpredictable father hanging over them.
Mark Lawry was in prison, where he belonged, and his family was finally free to enjoy their lives without him around to ruin everything.
John had apparently left his job as a police officer in Tennessee, although he wasn’t talking about why. He and Jeff, a recent college graduate, were staying at the spacious new home their mom shared with her new husband, Charlie Grandchamp, while they figured out their next moves.
Cindy was filling in for Chloe Dennis as the stylist at the Curl Up and Dye salon while Chloe supervised the building of a day spa at the McCarthy’s Gansett Island Hotel in North Harbor.
Cindy wasn’t sure what the off-season on Gansett would be like, but she was looking forward to finding out.
The job at the salon was fun and busy, and she’d socked away some money this summer to help pay the rent in the winter when things slowed down.
With Julia basically living with her fiancé, Deacon Taylor, Cindy was going to need another roommate to help swing the rent. She hoped she could find someone, but feared that would be a difficult task with the summer ending and the seasonal jobs drying up for the winter.
“You need a refill?” Jace, the new bartender, asked.
He had sleeve tattoos over bulging arm muscles and a gruff way about him.
He was handsome in a bad-boy sort of way that had appealed to Cindy in the past. At this point in her life, however, she’d had enough of bad boys to last her a lifetime.
All she wanted was to find a nice, boring guy who would never break her heart to settle down with and have some babies. Was that too much to ask?
Apparently so, because she hadn’t found him yet.
Cindy realized she hadn’t answered his question. “Sure, I’ll take some more ice water. Thank you.” She’d had a salad and a cup of chowder for dinner earlier, and thankfully, Jace didn’t mind keeping her in ice water while she took up a seat at his bar and listened to Niall’s music.
“He’s great, huh?” Jace asked, nodding to Niall.
“He is. I could listen to him all night.”
“You don’t want anything stronger to drink?”
“Wish I could. Alcohol and migraines don’t play nicely together.”
“Ah, gotcha. That sucks.”
“It really does.”
“You get a lot of them?”
“Two or three a month, which is much less than the bad old days when it was one or two a week. My new meds help.”
“Still, two or three a month is too many.”
“True.” She took a sip of her ice water and noted the lemon he’d added to give it some flavor. “I haven’t seen you here before. Are you new?”
“Just started yesterday.”
Providence, RI, was listed as his hometown under his name on his name tag. “It’s late in the season to be starting a new job around here.”
“So I hear, but the Beachcomber stays open year-round, and they were looking for someone who wanted to be here for the off-season. I guess that’s not easy to find.”
“What brings you to Gansett?”
“My sons live here.”
“Oh, wow. How old are they?”
“Jackson is seven, and Kyle is six.”
“Those are great ages. Do they live with your ex?”
“They did until she passed away last year, and their next-door neighbors stepped up to take them in.”
“That was nice of them.”
He nodded even as his cheek pulsed with tension. “Truth is, I wasn’t around for a lot of years, so my ex did what she thought was best, you know?”
“Yeah,” Cindy said, curious to know the rest of the story, but not willing to ask questions that were none of her business.
“What about you?” he asked, seeming eager to change the subject. “What brings you to Gansett?”
“My entire family seems to have ended up here in recent years. I came for a sibling’s wedding and decided to stay for the summer.”
“You got a big family?” As they talked, he wiped the bar and washed glasses.
“I’m one of seven.”
“Whoa. That’s a lot of siblings. Fun growing up that way?”
“At times.” When their father had been around, it was a freaking nightmare, not that this handsome stranger needed to know that. “Do you have siblings?”
“Just a sister. She’s older than me, has three kids and a nice husband. She did everything right.”
Did that mean he’d done everything wrong?
Jace moved on to tend to other customers while Cindy contemplated the things he’d told her.
He had kids he’d been out of touch with for quite some time, who were now living with friends, and a sister who’d done everything right.
He’d seemed pained telling her his kids had gone to someone other than him when their mother died.
It was none of her business, of course, but she still wanted to know. Cindy possessed an innate curiosity about people and their stories. Sometimes she thought about writing, but work and life always seemed to get in the way of that lofty dream.
Over the next hour, Jace kept her in ice water while she listened Niall’s music, and Jace tended to other customers.
Cindy hadn’t intended to stick around all night, but she found herself still there at last call. “I should settle my tab,” she said.
Jace produced her check and ran her credit card.
She added a ten-dollar tip and signed the slip. “Thanks for keeping me hydrated.”
“My pleasure. Hope you’ll come back to see me again.”
“I’ll do that.” She got up from her stool and started to walk away.
“Hey, you never told me your name.”
She turned back, smiling. “It’s Cindy. Cindy Lawry.”
“Nice to meet you, Cindy Lawry.”
“You, too.” She walked the short distance home with a smile on her face, feeling as if she’d made a new friend.
“What do you mean he’s living here now?” Seamus O’Grady felt like his head was going to explode at any second.
“Janey heard from Libby at the Beachcomber that they’d hired a new bartender for the off-season and that his name is Jace Carson.
She remembered that was the boys’ father’s name and thought we’d like to know he’s on the island.
” Carolina paused before she looked up at her husband.
“What do you suppose it means that he’s here? ”
“I have no earthly idea, but you can bet your ass I’m going to find out.”
Seamus didn’t sleep a wink that night as one dreadful scenario after another had him gripped with anxiety. Jace had agreed to leave the boys with Seamus and Carolina, where they’d been doing as well as could be expected after tragically losing their mother to cancer.
The four of them had become a family in the months since they’d lost Lisa, and the possibility of anything upsetting that, especially the boys’ biological father deciding to move to their island, didn’t bear consideration.
What did it mean that he had moved to Gansett?
That question plagued Seamus during that long night and had him at the front desk of the Beachcomber at seven in the morning asking where to find their new bartender.
“He lives in employee housing,” the manager, Libby, said. “He’s not in some kind of trouble, is he?”
“No, nothing like that.” While the entire island community knew he and Carolina had taken in the boys, only their family and closest friends knew the boys’ father had come back on the scene recently. “I just wanted to see him about something.”
“He’s in room seven out back. You know where it is, right?”
“I do. Thanks, Libby.”
“Sure, no problem.”
Seamus walked through the hotel and exited out the back door, crossing the crushed-shell driveway to the employee housing. Room seven was on the second floor. Seamus took the stairs two at a time and banged on the door. He waited a full minute before he started banging again.
The door flew open to reveal Jace, bare-chested, hair standing on end and a scowl on his face.
“What’re you doing here?” Seamus asked.
“I was sleeping until you started making a racket.”
“What’re you doing on Gansett Island?”
“Working.”
“You just suddenly decided to get a job here, of all places?”
“It wasn’t sudden. After I saw the boys, I wanted to live closer to them so I could see them more often.”
“And you made this decision without so much as a conversation with me? I thought we had an understanding, you and me.”
“We did. We do. I’m not here to disrupt their lives or yours. I’d just like to see them once in a while.”
“You could do that without moving here.”
“It’s easier if I live here.”
“Tell me the truth… Is your endgame to try to get custody of them?”
“No.”
“You swear to God? On their lives?”
“I swear to God on their lives that’s not my plan.”
Seamus took the first deep breath he’d had in hours. “It feels strange, you moving here with no word to me after I let you see them.”
“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision when I saw the job opening at the Beachcomber.”
“A simple text could’ve taken care of giving me a heads-up so I didn’t have to hear through the grapevine that the boys’ father had moved here.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have.” Jace propped an arm on the doorframe. “Ever since I saw them…”
“What?”
“I realized how much I miss them. I fucked up everything, you know? My marriage, my kids, my job. Everything. Since I got clean, I’ve been trying to make amends.
I can’t do that with Lisa, and I’ll always regret that she died before I had the chance to make things right with her.
But the boys… I still have a chance with them. ”
Seamus swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re expecting to happen.”
“I don’t expect anything except maybe the opportunity to see the boys whenever I can.”
“You didn’t have to move here for that to happen. I told you we’d let you see them.”
“I’ve been looking for a fresh start. When I saw the bartending job opening at the Beachcomber, it felt like a sign.”
“Aren’t you in recovery?”
“Booze wasn’t my drug of choice.” Jace folded his arms. “Look, man, I get why you’re wound up. You and your wife stepped up for the kids, and you don’t want me or anyone else to upset their new life.”
“They’re doing really well.” A lump of emotion suddenly appeared in his throat. “A lot better than they were when Lisa first passed.”
“The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt them any more than I already have, even if they don’t remember me hurting them in the past.”
“That’s good to know.” Seamus looked the other man in the eye. “So where do we go from here?”
“That’s up to you. I’m here, and I’d like to be as much a part of their lives as you and your wife see fit. I’m not looking to displace you as their father figure. I just want to be a friend to them. And you. If you’ll have me.”
Seamus felt himself relax ever so slightly. “Aye, I hear you. I’m just trying really hard not to feel threatened by you.”
“I promise you don’t need to be. I’m not playing any kind of game here. You have my word on that. I just…” He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “I wanted to be closer to them, but you’re absolutely right that I should’ve talked to you about it first.”
“I’m glad we agree on that.” Seamus took a deep breath and let it out. “Carolina and I are having a clambake on Labor Day, in the afternoon, if you’d like to come by.”
“I’d like that very much.”
“I guess we’ll see you then.”
“Thank you, Seamus.”
Seamus nodded. “No more surprises, okay?”
“I hear you. No more surprises.”
Satisfied that they understood each other, Seamus went down the stairs, feeling much better than he had when he’d arrived. He pulled out his cell and called Carolina.
“Did you see him?”
“I did.”
“And?”
Seamus conveyed the gist of their conversation to Carolina. “I invited him to come by on Labor Day, and now I’m realizing I probably should’ve talked to you about that first.”
“It’s fine. As long as he’s not here hoping to wrestle custody from us, I can live with them seeing him occasionally.”
“Aye,” he said, sighing. “Me, too. I feel like I can breathe again for the first time since you told me last night what Janey had heard.”
“Same.”
“I never expected parenthood to be so…”
“Stressful?” she asked, laughing.
“Yeah. Stressful is a good word.”
“It’s that, but so many other things, too.”
“Very true. Those boys and you, our little family… You’re my whole world, Caro. Anything that threatens it makes me crazy.”
“I understand. Believe me. I’ve been a little crazy myself since Janey told me that yesterday. It’s funny because if you told me a couple of years ago that I’d be raising young children again at my age, I would’ve laughed. But now those boys are everything to me.”
“Those boys are damned lucky to have you, Caro. We all are.”
“Same to you, my love. Are you going to be able to function today?”
“I believe so,” he said with a laugh. “He was nice about it all. Apologized for not giving me a heads-up he was coming out. I keep wanting to dislike him, but I find that difficult.”
“I suppose it’s better for everyone if we keep it cordial with him.”
“Right you are, as usual. Well, I’d better get to the office. I’m on the ten o’clock boat, and I’ve got some paperwork waiting for me before that.”
“Thanks for taking such good care of our family, Seamus. We love you.”
“Love you, too, sweet Caro. With everything I am.”