Chapter Thirteen
Now that ice cream season is in full swing, a reminder that Dolly’s vet says she shouldn’t have ice cream, no matter how much she begs or tries to fight for yours—beware those claws.
If Dolly wants to join you, please let us know and we’ll provide a little bit of frozen plain yogurt for her to enjoy.
–Schooner Scoops in Wayward Harbor Online Community Group
Lucy shuffled out of her bedroom before seven the next morning, rubbing her face because she did not want to be out of bed yet. She was rewarded with a chuckle from Nick. He was leaning against the counter, fully dressed and ready for work, while he finished off his coffee.
“Did you have a bad dream?” he asked. “Like maybe you were battling somebody and woke up all twisted in blankets?”
“I know what I look like, thank you.” She also didn’t care. “I got a text, and my brain went straight to something being wrong with Gran.”
He straightened “Is she okay?”
“Yeah.” She poured coffee into a mug. “It was Taylor, but that burst of fear woke me right up and I couldn’t go back to sleep.”
“Kinda early for conversational texts.”
She took a sip of the coffee and sighed. “Right? I usually use the Do Not Disturb stuff on my phone so I’m not used to being woken up by texts, but I turned that off because Gran’s running amok and I have a little anxiety about it.”
“Understandable. I have mine set so my brothers can call me if they need me, but Theo can’t wake me up sharing memes he thinks are hilarious. And Beck sends a lot of pictures of the kids, and I treasure them, but they can wait until I’ve had coffee.”
“I guess she wanted to text me before she left for work, but she wants me to go to the bank at eleven thirty.”
Nick chuckled, and then turned to wash out his empty cup. “That doesn’t sound suspicious at all. Maybe it’s a heist, and she’s going to seduce Carson into opening the vault and then have you run out with the money while she distracts him.”
Thankfully, Lucy had swallowed her mouthful of coffee or she might have spit it out. “I think you watch too many movies.”
“You think she got the results?”
“Probably. I’m afraid it’s bad news because why wouldn’t she just forward me the email or send me a text?”
Nick looked at the clock on the stove and winced. “Maybe it’s not even the results. Try not to worry about it all morning.”
“I’ll try not to. And you should go. I know you hate to be late.”
He nodded and started for the door, but then he turned back. “Let me know, okay?”
“I will,” she promised, and the concern in his eyes warmed her as much as the coffee. It was nice having somebody care enough to want her to check in.
A few hours later, Lucy walked into the bank with her stomach in knots.
Over the course of the morning, she’d managed to convince herself this had to be about the DNA test results.
And until she actually faced the possibility Taylor wasn’t her sister, she hadn’t realized how desperately she wanted her to be.
A man was standing near the center island, where people could fill out deposit slips and such. He was wearing a shirt and tie, and his dark hair was cut very short. A perfect banker type, she thought as he stepped toward her and extended his hand. “I’m Carson. Let’s go to my office.”
There were two offices separated from the lobby, but they had massive glass windows, so they weren’t exactly private. But Carson led her down a short hallway and up a flight of stairs to a longer hallway. At the end, on the right, a heavy wooden door stood open.
“My office,” he told her, gesturing for her to go ahead. “Sorry for the subterfuge, but Taylor’s lunch breaks are short and she didn’t want to wait until after work.”
“People are going to think I bounced a really large check,” she said, and he laughed. “It’s nice to meet you, though.”
“The door we just passed is a storage room, and I’m going to go rifle through some ancient boxes to give you some privacy.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’d go downstairs, but I can’t come up with a good explanation for leaving you alone in my office.”
“Don’t people know Taylor’s up here?” Maybe none of them were as sneaky as they thought.
“I let her in the back door. I do it all the time if she comes over for lunch, and honestly I don’t think anybody saw her. They’d have to check the cameras.”
Taylor poked her head out into the hall. “I don’t have much time.”
Carson blew her a kiss, which was adorable, and then turned back toward the storage room. As soon as Lucy was in his office, Taylor closed the door behind her. “The results are in my email.”
Lucy’s pulse quickened and tears threatened, even though it wasn’t time for them yet. “What do they say?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t going to read it without you.”
“How did you not even peek for hours? I don’t think I could have resisted.”
“It was hard, but…I’m a little scared.” Taylor looked at her, with her face and hair that were like Lucy’s, and yet not. “No matter what this says, we can still be sisters, you know.”
The tears couldn’t be contained as Lucy nodded. “Sisters, no matter what.”
After they both took deep breaths, Taylor unlocked her phone. They stood with their shoulders pressed together so they could both see the screen as the email opened.
A moment later, the tears ran unchecked as they held each other in the middle of Carson’s office. They were officially sisters—forever bound by a man Taylor had loved and lost, and whom Lucy had never known at all.
“I knew it as soon as I met you,” Taylor said once they’d taken a minute to breathe and put a serious dent in the box of tissues on Carson’s desk.
“When I left Las Vegas, I didn’t feel like I had anybody,” Lucy said. She’d even felt abandoned by her mother. “And now I have Gran back in my life and I have a sister.”
And Nick. She had Nick, too.
“Forever,” Taylor whispered. “No matter what. And hopefully we’ll be able to tell people someday.”
Their laughter put an end to the lingering tears, and by the time Carson knocked on the door and stuck his head in, their eyes were dry. Maybe a little puffy, but they were all smiles.
“From stranger to future sister-in-law,” Carson said after they’d broken the news. He gave her a quick awkward hug before giving them a chagrined look. “I hate to break up the party, but I have to resolve an issue downstairs so this meeting has to be cut short.”
Lucy laughed and gave her eyes a final swipe with a fresh tissue. “Can you tell I’ve been crying? They’re going to think I bounced a really big check.”
“Unfortunately, you won’t be the first person to leave my office having cried. At least these are happy tears.”
After giving her official sister a final hug, Lucy followed Carson down the hallway. She couldn’t wait to tell Nick, and she paused before the first step to send him a quick text message.
I have a sister!
He was working and probably wouldn’t respond immediately, so she slid her phone into her back pocket and followed Carson into the lobby.
He turned to shake her hand, and over his shoulder she saw Nick talking to the teller behind the counter.
He gave her a quick smile and, after a few words to the teller, turned to leave.
Lucy finished saying goodbye to Taylor’s fiancé, trying to keep up the appearance they were wrapping up some kind of banking-related meeting, and then she went after Nick.
He was waiting for her on the sidewalk, leaning against the brick wall. “Congratulations.”
“I’m so happy right now.” She held up her hands. “What are you doing here, though?”
“Well, it’s my bank. And the company’s bank.
I come here a lot, actually. They always have good candy in the dishes and not just cheap lollipops.
” He shrugged. “And I’ve been worrying about you all morning, so I figured I’d show up so we could either get ice cream to cheer you up or to celebrate.
And this is great because celebratory ice cream tastes better than consolation ice cream. ”
It was a good thing Lucy was cried out, so she was able to smile and nod without blubbering into his shirt in public. “That’s science. And when I passed Schooner Scoops while looking for parking, it might have triggered an ice cream craving.”
“Let’s go, then,” he said, and then he chuckled. “You really are a sucker for nautical puns.”
* * *
By the time Nick gave up on what he was looking for, the garage and the shed were trashed, and he’d done a pretty good job tossing the basement, too. But he’d come up empty.
How was it possible his life now included living in a house with no footballs in it?
Sure, there were several plastic bins of football memorabilia in the basement, including at least three game balls he could think of off the top of his head.
A touchdown he’d run in to win the Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl Classic his senior year of high school.
His first college touchdown. The ball he’d run into the endzone in a college championship.
But they were older now and probably wouldn’t be holding air worth a damn.
Also, he didn’t want to open those bins.
He hadn’t been able to throw the memories away, and he never would.
But after his mom’s cancer was diagnosed, putting his football history away had been one of his personal stages of grief.
His family had said nothing, but he’d seen the sorrow and guilt they felt, so he tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal.
It had been, though. He couldn’t look at it all anymore—the reminders of how long and hard he’d worked to be mere months from achieving his goal—and closing those bins had been a way of accepting that football was over for him.
But lately he’d been itching to hold a ball again, and it was 100 percent Lucy’s fault.
It wasn’t as if he’d totally avoided football. He watched the Patriots with his brothers or friends at the Keel, and there would be jokes made. People still liked to reminisce with him about some big play he made back in the day. Football was a part of life.