Chapter 4
Lucy
Lucy trailed behind Pam, Bob, and Pete as they walked down to the Waterway Café for dinner after the meeting. She still couldn’t believe the handsome man with the dazzling emerald eyes—whom she’d let herself believe, if only for a moment, resembled Prince Charming—was actually the man the town had brought in to shove a new development down their throats. But it was just her luck.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what we need,” Bob was saying ahead of her. “Some big-city lawyer or planner or whatever he is coming in to tell us how our town should be.”
“Clearly the entire council is dead set on development, not just Councilman Turner,” Pam said, referring to the lone developer on the council. “This guy is just like all the others they’ve brought in to do presentations.”
“He’s at least better looking though, right?” Pete turned back to the ladies and patted his right hand over his heart. “Did you see those eyes? Be still my heart.”
Pam laughed. “Don’t let Frank hear you say that.” Frank was Pete’s longtime partner.
“What?” Pete shrugged. “I’m allowed to look.”
Pam nudged Lucy. “I caught him looking at you more than once. Maybe you can charm him onto our side.”
Lucy grimaced, a bitter taste filling her mouth. Before she could answer, Mildred Banks, who owned the Waterway Café with her husband Marty, opened the door to the restaurant to greet them. “Come on in, y’all.”
“Hi, Mildred,” Lucy said, stopping to hug the older lady.
“I heard about the meeting,” Mildred said. “Marty’s in back filleting fish. That’s what he does when he’s really upset.”
“Tell him to make enough for me too.” Bob chuckled. “I tend to bang nails into a board when I’m mad. At least Marty’s doing something productive.”
“I’ll tell him y’all are here in case he wants to come out and commiserate.” Mildred took them to a table in the far-right corner where they’d have some privacy. A few tourist couples and one family were sitting in the opposite corner where they could overlook the water. The views at the Waterway Café were nearly as good as the food.
A weathered blue-gray building perched atop tall stilts that extended out of the marina’s docks, the restaurant looked a bit like their island’s namesake, the great blue heron. Eating there after a meeting that could lead to the restaurant’s destruction was bittersweet. All three of the previous plans had included demolishing the current docks and restaurant in favor of all new builds. The Waterway Café was welcome to lease one of the new spaces, but it wouldn’t be the same—not in atmosphere or price.
Steve, one of the servers who’d been at the restaurant for at least the past decade, came to take their drink orders. Sweet teas for Bob and Pam, lemonade for Lucy, and champagne for Pete. Lucy raised an eyebrow at Pete’s order, but he was too busy chatting with Steve to notice.
“I’ve been thinking about what we should do,” Lucy said. “Clearly they’re going to move forward with something with or without us, so we need to make sure our voices are heard this time.”
“What did you have in mind?” Bob asked.
“I think we all have to get on the same page about what we want. Best-case scenario, what goes into this new development? How big is it? How do we make sure it’s environmentally friendly? What kind of aesthetic do we want?”
“Getting all the downtown owners on the same page is a bit like herding cats,” Pam said.
“Yeah, the kind that wail outside your window at night in heat.” Pete laughed as he picked up the glass of champagne Steve had sat in front of him.
“What are you celebrating anyway?” Bob asked Pete, pointing at the champagne glass.
“Life, my dear man. Cheers to being on this earth one more day.” Pete held up his glass to the others and they begrudgingly followed suit.
“It wasn’t exactly the day I had in mind,” Pam grumbled.
Steve soon returned to take their orders, and they all got their usuals: a fried fish sandwich for Bob, crab bisque and a house salad with grilled shrimp for Pete, shrimp and grits for Pam, and a burger and fries for Lucy.
“I know this building isn’t historic,” Lucy said, looking around, “but it’s been here for thirty years. I’d hate to see it go.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And what will Marty and Mildred do? They’re so close to retirement, I doubt they’ll want to start over in the new development.”
The group continued discussing Marty and Mildred’s dilemma until Steve reappeared with Pete’s crab bisque.
“Oh, crab bisque, I’ll miss you the most.” Pete dramatically dragged his spoon through his soup, lifting it high before letting the contents pour back into the bowl.
Lucy’s shoulders slumped as she took another sip of her drink. This was depressing.
“Pardon the interruption,” came a deep voice that had been foreign to her until today.
Now it seemed she couldn’t escape it. It was him.
Logan Lancaster had appeared out of seemingly nowhere. “I couldn’t help but overhear. I know you probably all see me as the enemy, but I assure you I’m here to help. I want to find a plan that works for all of you.”
Logan focused on Lucy, the green of his eyes deeper in the dim light of the restaurant. She noticed gold flecks she hadn’t seen before glimmering in the candlelight. Unable to hold his gaze any longer, her eyes fell to his lips, and she found herself imagining what they would feel like on hers.
Pam’s voice interrupted her thoughts just in time, and she forced her mind back to the business at hand.
“You do realize you’re saying that as you stand in a building that will almost certainly be torn down?”
“If you’d tried this crab bisque, you’d understand what a tragedy that would be,” Pete said as he lifted the spoon to his mouth and sighed with contentment as he swallowed the creamy liquid.
Logan looked around the room as if really seeing it for the first time before turning his gaze back to them. “Have you all seen the engineering report the city commissioned after the last hurricane? As charming as it is—and that crab bisque does look divine”—he looked at Pete’s bowl appreciatively—“this building is on borrowed time. Instead of wasting money on a legal battle over whose responsibility it is to fix the damage, the Waterway Café could have a state-of-the-art restaurant in the new development.”
Lucy hadn’t read the full report, but the Heron Isle Observer had summarized it. So much of the substructure of the restaurant had been damaged that it would only take one more strong storm to wipe it out. The building had been deemed safe for now, but it needed substantial repairs to withstand the next severe weather event. The Bankses had been embroiled in a legal battle with the city for months over who would fund the repairs, each claiming the poorly written lease agreement from decades prior put the burden on the other.
The table had fallen silent; they’d all seen the newspaper article and knew about the ongoing legal fight. They also knew the Bankses couldn’t afford the structural repairs on a building they didn’t own, especially not so late in their lives.
“And what are the Bankses supposed to do for the next two years while they’re closed down and waiting on a new building?” Lucy didn’t give him a chance to answer. “And what about the competition from the other waterfront restaurants that will go in? Right now, they basically own the waterfront, so how is this plan what’s best for them?”
“See, those are the kind of things we all need to sit down and discuss. They are valid concerns that should be taken into consideration when the city makes them an offer to end their lease a few years early.”
He wasn’t hearing her. The Bankses didn’t want someone to write them a check and send them on their merry way. They wanted to keep running the restaurant they’d spent the past thirty years here building. She’d heard Marty say it himself at a previous planning meeting.
Suddenly, Lucy had an idea. “You know what? Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Logan gave her a curious look but said, “Sure.”
Lucy got up and approached the host stand where the owner was waving goodbye to a family shuffling out the front door. “Mildred, I need you to come with me for a minute.”
Mildred’s eyebrows knitted together, deepening the wrinkles in her forehead. Lucy wasn’t sure exactly how old Mildred was, but she had to be in her mid- to late sixties.
“Is something wrong?” she asked as she began to follow Lucy back to the table.
“No, nothing like that. I want you to meet someone.”
When they arrived at the table, Lucy noticed Logan rocking back and forth on his feet. He was uncomfortable standing there waiting for her return. Good.
“Logan Lancaster, I want you to meet Mildred Banks. She and her husband Marty own the Waterway Café. I’d introduce you to Marty, but I think it’s best you let him take out his frustration on the fish in back instead of on you.”
Logan raised an eyebrow as if trying to guess where she was going with this. Turning to smile at Mildred, he reached out to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
Logan’s friendly smile had engaged his lopsided dimple. If Lucy didn’t hate him so much right now, she might find that look even more attractive than the full one-hundred-watt smile he’d weaponized during the meeting to try to win everyone over. This smile was the one he’d given her earlier on the sidewalk. As if she’d just done something irresistibly cute, and he wanted to grab her and kiss her.
Good grief. She had to stop thinking about kissing this man. What was with her? Nothing about Logan Lancaster was cute. Nothing. He was a money-grabbing outsider who’d come to turn their island into some over-commercialized strip mall on the water.
Lucy jumped in before he could try his charm on Mildred. “Mildred, this is the man who’s come to help the town take away your restaurant.”
Pete gasped from his seat at the table, and Mildred’s mouth fell open as she looked from Logan to Lucy and back again, but no words came out.
Logan was unfazed as he turned to Lucy. “Now, I think that’s an over-generalization. Don’t you?”
He was looking at her as if he genuinely didn’t know what she was talking about. What was it about those eyes that made it so hard for her to think straight? She concentrated on imagining all the evil characters in children’s books who had hypnotic eyes. He was a villain, not Prince Charming.
Turning his attention back to the older woman in front of him, Logan spoke in a soothing tone. “Mildred—can I call you Mildred?—it’s true the town brought me in to see if I could help turn around their financial predicament, and a big piece of the puzzle is better management of this amazing waterfront real estate. If I remember correctly from the complaint you all filed against the city, you have had to repair some of the decking structure on your own in the past. Am I right?”
Mildred nodded, still obviously a little shell-shocked from the unexpected encounter. Her eyes flitted from Logan’s to Lucy’s and finally around the table, but they were all as caught off guard as she was.
“Well, I think that’s just nonsense, Mildred. You and your husband shouldn’t be putting out your own money to get this kind of work done. The city owns this property, and they should be doing those things. But they haven’t been—and I’ve already said this to them—because they’re a terrible landlord. They don’t have the first idea how to manage property, maintain it, or maximize its value. That’s what I’m here for. I’m not just going to come up with a plan to address the immediate need for a better structure here; I’m also going to help them hire someone to manage the new development so we never run into these issues again in the future.” He gave her another full smile, dimple and all.
Lucy could see Mildred was falling under his spell, nodding as he rattled off his speech. She wanted to break in and tell Mildred that they were all prepared to help her and Marty save the restaurant—and get the city to foot the tab for the repairs—but she actually didn’t know exactly how to do those things.
Logan took the restaurant owner’s hand in his. “Mildred, I promise you that I’ll work to find a compromise you and Marty can be happy with, and you won’t ever have to worry about your safety or pay for your own repairs ever again.”
Mildred nodded, clearly mesmerized by his charm.
Lucy’s plan was backfiring. She’d hoped that by humanizing the restaurant and introducing Logan to sweet Mildred, he’d start to see that this wasn’t just another big-city project where major corporations moved their pieces around on a chess board, each jockeying for their slice of a fancy new development. That these were people’s livelihoods, their life’s work at stake.
“See?” Logan looked first to Lucy and then at the rest of the table, grinning as if he’d just solved world hunger. “For every problem there’s a solution. That is, if we all work together.”
Mildred excused herself quickly as she saw another table headed for the door. Seven days a week, she was always there by the front door acknowledging everyone as they came and went. She knew the locals by name and which tables or servers they preferred. You just didn’t get that kind of customer service from a chain restaurant, which Lucy was sure Logan would love to court as anchors in his new building. Just what they needed, a Joe’s Jumbo Shrimp Shack with its gaudy cartoon jumbo shrimp emblazoned on the side of the building greeting people as they walked out on the docks or wandered up from the beach that flanked the marina to their left.
“You’ve just got an answer for everything, don’t you?” Lucy mumbled under her breath, crossing her arms.
Logan turned to her, the space between them closing to only a few inches. He was so close she could smell his cologne. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, probably because she’d let him hypnotize her with those darn eyes. He smelled like Christmas, notes of pine and vanilla reminding her of eating cookies by the tree with her dad.
“Well, I certainly hope I do. When I leave here, I want to know both the city and its residents are going to be thriving for years to come. You’ll see, Lucy. I’m not so bad.”
And then he winked at her. The nerve.
She stared at him as he nodded to the others and then walked away. Those green eyes, that lopsided smile with the one dimple, the dizzying cologne she couldn’t seem to breathe in enough of. Logan Lancaster was bad news. For her and for Heron Isle.