Chapter Seven #3
“That’s not entirely true,” Tricia said with a sudden grin.
“I don’t understand.” Callie felt as if she’d missed a step.
“Well,” Tricia said with a crooked smile, “we might not have Khaki here with us anymore, but we on the island know exactly how she’d make a newcomer feel welcome.”
Then she asked Callie, “You and Trey will be free tonight, right?”
Not sure whether she was coming or going, Callie gave the other woman a slow nod. “I’m free. But I don’t know anything about Trey’s social calendar.”
But Tricia waved that concern away. “Oh, he’ll be free for this. Don’t you worry about it.”
Callie blinked. She hadn’t been worried, but now she wondered if she should be. “Tricia, I don’t know what you’re planning but don’t you think we should ask Trey before we plan something without hi—”
Tricia patted Callie on the hand. “Girl, I know he’ll be free because that man would never turn down mudbugs and beer.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Callie remembered hearing about mudbugs, but at the moment she couldn’t recall exactly what they were.
Taking pity on her, Tricia laughed. “Crawfish, honey. We’re going to give you a true Petite C?te Island welcome. We’re gonna have a good old-fashioned crawfish boil.”
Wondering if this was what a football quarterback felt like when he’d been sacked, Callie raised a hand in protest, but she knew the game was already over. “I can’t let you—”
“Hush now, Callie,” the café owner said with a shake of her head.
“I could throw together a crawfish boil in my sleep. And there’s nothing this island enjoys more than impromptu entertainment.
Now, you run back home and let me get started prepping and we’ll see you at my house around six, six thirty. OK?”
Realizing that resistance was futile, Callie stood and watched as Tricia also got to her feet. And before she knew what was going on, she found herself enveloped in a hard hug. “I am so glad you’re here, Callie Jameson. We’re going to have so much fun!”
And knowing she’d been dismissed, Callie left the café, wondering what had happened to Trey—wasn’t he supposed to meet her here?—when she almost ran into him as she stepped out the door of the café onto the boardwalk.
“There you are,” he said, reaching out to grab her upper arms before they collided. “I guess you and Tricia found a lot to talk about if you’re just now leaving the café.”
Nodding, Callie allowed him to pull her away from the doorway and off to the side where they wouldn’t block the entrance.
Once that was accomplished, she explained about Tricia’s idea to have a crawfish boil that evening.
She’d expected him to be annoyed to hear that his rival for ownership of the library was getting such a warm welcome, but to her surprise, he seemed to think it wasn’t a bad idea.
“It’ll be an easy way to make sure you get introduced to the main players in town,” he told her with a shrug. “And since you have to stay here for an entire year, I guess you should start settling in while you can.”
At that, she gasped. “How did you hear about that?”
“I talked to Julie,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “You didn’t really think I wouldn’t find out, did you? Even if I didn’t hear about the terms of the will from Julie, this town is tiny. People are bound to talk.”
Callie put her hands on her hips. “Then I hope you at least found out from Julie that I’m not some fortune hunter who was out to trick your aunt into giving me her money or her property.”
She wished Trey wasn’t wearing sunglasses, because it was impossible to tell what he was thinking when his eyes were covered up. Still, from the twist of his mouth, it was clear he still felt some kind of way about her inheritance.
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “She told me how close you and Khaki were. I still don’t think you should have inherited the library since you’re not family, but I’m not quite so butt-hurt about it as I was.”
At his use of the slang term, Callie bit back a smile. “I guess that’s as good as I can expect for now. And I do understand why you’d be upset.”
Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his board shorts and jangling his keys, Trey gave a sharp nod. “Yeah, well. I guess if you have to stay here for a year, I’m going to have a harder time convincing you to go back to Ohio. So, I might as well make good on my promise to introduce you around.”
“I thought that was the whole point of the crawfish boil,” she protested.
“Not everybody here is going to be able to come tonight,” he told her with a smile. “And this way you can check out all the retail that’s available here. If you’re going to be stuck here for a year, you might as well get a good understanding of just how tiny this place really is.”
And determined not to let the man’s attitude interfere with her desire to learn about her new home, Callie let him lead her down the wooden sidewalk that ran down what passed for the main street on Petite C?te Island, the sound of seagulls and beach music accompanying them all the way.