Chapter Fourteen
Trey
I’ve been around boats my whole life,” Bobby said as the sailboat coasted over the surface of the water, “and I gotta say, this is the first time I’ve ever had a cat on board.”
Trey looked over to where Callie kept a watchful eye on Stella—kitted out in a tiny life jacket—where she sat beside her on the boat’s bench seat.
“She’s pretty adventurous,” Callie said, stroking a hand over the cat’s head. “My brother had her before me, and he took her camping and rock climbing and even surfing a couple of times, I think. I’m pretty sure she finds life with me boring by comparison.”
“How did you end up with her?” Trey asked, curious. There was clearly a strong bond between Callie and the feline, so he was surprised to learn she hadn’t raised her from a kitten.
“He took a position overseas and didn’t want to put her through the rigors of all the shots and quarantine and stuff.”
“She’s a pretty cool cat,” Tricia said from where she sat next to Bobby on the other side of the boat. “But we need to make sure to get you on some adventures too. Can’t have your kitty cat living a more exciting life than you are. It’s not fair.”
Trey had some ideas for how to add some excitement to Callie’s life, but he figured that might be taking things faster than she was willing to go.
But Callie just laughed at Tricia’s teasing. “I just left my job of almost a decade to move nine hundred miles across the country, ma’am. I might not be a surfing cat, but I think that’s pretty adventurous.”
“The lady has a point, Tricia.” Bobby gave his wife a grin and gave her a playful poke in the side. “Gotta let her catch her breath before we rope her into the wild island lifestyle.”
“Watch out, Callie, or they’ll have you and Stella snorkeling off the reefs,” Trey warned. “Or if you’re really up for some excitement, there’s parasailing. Though I guess there’s always bird-watching if the others are too much adventure for you.”
Callie gave a mock shudder. “I refuse to join the bird-watchers since they’re the ones who took my room at the Sand Dollar. Though I’m pretty sure Stella has been parasailing. Maybe she can teach me the basics.”
“Now, that I’d like to see,” Trey said as he went to help Bobby trim the sails so they could adjust their angle.
As the boat cut through the water, he noticed another boat, its colorful sails puffed out with the wind, eating up the distance between them.
“Looks like the mayor is out wining and dining again,” Tricia said with a small shake of her head. “I swear he’s got a different woman on that boat every weekend.”
When the other boat was close enough for Trey to see the man at the helm as well as his passenger, he saw that it was indeed Frank Barbier, the proprietor of the Sand Dollar Motel, with his girlfriend, Louise, in a more daring bikini than Callie had ever worn, seated beside him.
“I didn’t realize Frank was the mayor of Petite C?te Island,” Callie said to Tricia, in a voice loud enough for the other woman to hear her, but not so loud that Frank would.
“Yeah,” Tricia said with a nod. “He’s good at it too.
He’s managed to steer the island through some troubled times over the past few years.
I haven’t agreed with everything he’s tried—like the reality show he couldn’t manage to get everybody behind—but he’s got a sound head for governing.
I’m worried one of these days some bigger office is going to steal him away from us. ”
Interesting, Callie thought. Yet another person here on the island who wasn’t what they seemed. She hadn’t really thought about Frank beyond their brief meetings since her arrival on the island. Just went to show her that appearances could be deceiving.
“Ahoy,” the man in question called out as he steered his sailboat out of the path of their vessel. “Beautiful evening for a sunset cruise, isn’t it? Good to see you again, Miz Jameson.”
Callie waved at the mayor and would have spoken, but Louise caught sight of Stella and gave a little squeal. “Oh, what an adorable kitty! And look at her little life jacket! This must be the famous Stella I’ve heard so much about.”
Callie must be used to the cat attracting attention when they were out in public together because she lifted her onto her lap. “This is Stella.”
“She’s so cute,” Louise cooed, looking as if she’d like to climb over into their boat so she could get a closer look at the adventurous cat. “How do you manage to get her to wear the life jacket? I can barely get mine to let me pick them up.”
While the women talked about Stella’s life before she’d come to live with Callie, Trey observed Frank’s growing impatience at being made to sit quietly while Louise chatted with Callie.
He’d known Frank for most of his life, and though they were friendly enough, the two men had never been what you’d call friends.
He’d only been on the island during the summer for the most part.
And Frank had lived here all year round.
Also, the owner of the Sand Dollar was older and had never been interested in hanging out with the kids in Trey and Bobby’s age group.
When the other man had started seeing Louise, who’d moved to the Gulf coast from somewhere up in the Northeast—Boston?
New York?—Trey had been surprised. Not because it was a mismatch, but because Louise seemed too …
nice for Frank? He just seemed a lot more ambitious than she was.
But who was he to say whether two people he barely knew were compatible?
He’d been wrong about himself and Monica. Clearly, he was no love guru.
“I heard about what’s been going on with the pranks and stuff at the library,” Frank said when there was a lull in the conversation between the two women. “I had no idea that had been going on over there for so long.”
Trey looked up sharply at the other man.
It was one thing for Alex and Bobby and Tricia to know about it, because they were his friends.
He didn’t like the idea that his personal business—aside from the whole inheritance thing—was being talked about all over town.
“Who told you about that?” he asked Frank.
“It’s nothing, really. Just a bunch of kids. ”
“I’m the mayor,” Frank reminded him, and Tricia and Bobby sent a side-eye Trey’s way at the humble brag. “I get weekly reports from the chief of police.”
“Wow,” Callie said with a laugh. “I know it’s an island and all, but I don’t know whether to be impressed at how little crime there must be, or sad that the kind of vandalism we’ve had is enough for the police chief to think is worth reporting to the mayor.”
“We take all crime seriously here, Callie,” said Frank with a slight edge of self-importance that was just the kind of thing that kept Trey from ever warming up to the man.
“You might not think it’s a big deal,” the mayor continued with the air of a man who was confident about his topic, “but if you consider the broken windows theory of policing, when you prevent seemingly trivial crimes, that in turn prevents major crimes.”
He wasn’t sure how the cat knew, but Stella must have noticed how annoyed Trey was getting over the way Frank was lecturing Callie, because as the other man droned on, the little cat climbed over out of Callie’s lap and up against Trey’s chest. Startled, he slipped an arm under the cat’s hind legs and held her securely like a baby.
“Aw, it looks like you made a friend, Trey,” said Louise with a smile at the pair of them.
“I didn’t even think you liked cats, LeBlanc.” The look Frank directed their way wasn’t as charmed as the one his girlfriend had sent them.
“He likes cats just fine,” Bobby said from where he’d moved forward to sit beside Tricia. “It’s people he has a problem with.”
Everyone laughed as Bobby had clearly intended, and soon they were saying their goodbyes and the boats were separating. As they got underway, Callie looked over to where Stella was dozing in Trey’s arms. “She’s never taken to someone that fast,” she said in wonder.
“I guess she’s never met anybody with the magic touch before,” he said with a grin.
“Wow.” Callie shook her head in wonder. “It’s amazing you can fit that giant-sized ego into an average-sized body.”
“There’s nothing average about my size, darlin’.”
Across the boat he heard Bobby’s chortle and Tricia’s hoot of laughter.
“You were sort of asking for that one, Callie,” Tricia said with a shake of her head. “You’ve got to be more careful with these two. If you don’t pay close enough attention, they will just full-on revert to snickering thirteen-year-old boys.”
“Aw now, don’t be mean, Tricia,” Bobby said with a whine. “We never revert to younger than sixteen most days.”
“Fourteen at the youngest,” Trey agreed.
“Y’all are terrible,” Callie said, clearly employing her best disapproving librarian expression.
“Did y’all hear what I just heard?” Trey asked in a loud enough voice that it woke up Stella, who gave him a little hiss and jumped from his arms to curl up on Callie’s discarded jacket on the far end of the bench.
Tricia was grinning too and said, “I definitely heard it. Miz Cincinnati Librarian just said ‘y’all.’ We’ll make a Southerner out of you yet, Callie.”
But Callie was in full-on denial. “I said no such thing. And if I did, it was a fluke.”
“You can’t take it back.” Trey watched in amusement as her cheeks grew pink. “Once you say it, you’re already on the road to ruin. Next thing you know, you’re drinking nothing but sweet tea and making cornbread from scratch like a native. I don’t make the rules.”
“Joke’s on you, funny guy,” Callie said, sticking out her tongue. “Khaki taught me to make cornbread from scratch ages ago. So, if that’s all it takes, I’ve already been ruined.”
They teased and joked all the way back to the marina, and by the time Trey and Callie, with Stella tucked snugly into her transparent kitty backpack on Trey’s shoulders, made it back to the library, the moon was already climbing into the evening sky.
“It’s so beautiful here,” Callie said as she looked up at the moon over the water. “Khaki told me, but I never really believed her until I saw it for myself. I can see why she loved it so much.”
“Yeah.” Beside her, Trey gave a soft laugh. “She called it her own slice of paradise. When Remy was here to share it with her, she was as happy as I’d ever seen her. But I don’t think she ever got over losing him.”
“I could tell how much she missed him,” Callie said, thinking about how many of Khaki’s stories about the island and the library in particular had revolved around Remy, the love of her life. “One of the things that comforts me the most about losing her is that she’s with him now.”
They were nearing their dock and the open garage area of the library now, and Callie felt a pang of disappointment.
The boat ride had been such fun and much of her enjoyment of it had been because she was sharing the experience with Trey.
It had never occurred to her when she first arrived here that he’d become so important to her, but perhaps because they’d gone through so many highly charged moments together—the Halloween cats, the ransacked cloakroom, and this afternoon’s sensory assault with Khaki’s perfume—she felt as if the typical rules of establishing rapport had gone out the window.
In some ways she felt as if they’d known each other for years instead of a month.
“I had fun today,” she said as they approached the fairy light–illuminated area beneath the library. “Thanks for going with me.”
“Of course.” Trey was pulling his keys from his pocket as they neared the door leading to the stairwell. “But now you get to indulge in one of the best parts of living in the library,” and in the dim light she saw his teeth flash white in a grin.
“I thought today was one of those perks,” Callie said, a little confused. She thought by now she’d seen all the amenities that the library had to offer. “Have you been holding out on me, LeBlanc?”
As they climbed the stairs and finally reached the door leading into the terrazzo-tiled foyer, she heard Stella mewing piteously to get out of her backpack.
Callie helped Trey shrug out of the carrier and quickly unzipped it to let the cat out of the bag—literally.
“Not holding out, exactly,” Trey explained, “just something I’ve been working on that wasn’t quite ready for prime time. But I think it is now. And it’s perfect for a night like this.”
Intrigued, Callie waited for him to explain further, but he stretched his arms up over his head and sighed in relief. “Go change, or shower, or do whatever you need to do to get comfortable and meet me down here when you’re ready.”
Grateful for the chance to get out of her bathing suit and to wash the bay water off her skin, Callie nodded. “OK. I won’t be long.”
And curiosity propelling her the whole way, she all but ran down the hall to her suite as she heard Trey’s amused chuckle echoing behind her.