A Shore Thing (31 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

Musky, hearty breathing awakened me, my eyes adjusting to the slow absence of light from the dimming sky. Moondoggy slept beside me, his slobbery snores making me question my sanity. I turned over to avoid his breath, my heart revving back up as my thoughts rolled over the past twenty-four hours. First a squabble at Sheila’s, then the beautiful baby, followed by Moondoggy’s disappearance and, finally, Gage. I pictured him, my knight, showing up at my first call, never giving up on finding Moondoggy . . . stumbling down that mountain.

I bit my bottom lip as it stretched into a smile.
Exactly why had I been fighting this man so long?
My smile faded as the answer quickened within me. Justin, had been attentive too—in the beginning anyway. At what point should a woman begin to believe that the prince won’t abandon the castle?

I rolled onto my back, my eyes becoming lost in the textures on the ceiling altered by low light. My phone buzzed, again, and I knew that I’d have to face the messages eventually. Ruth had called three times so far, saying she had tough issues to discuss with me and
when will you be getting back to me already?

I retrieved the phone, dialed, and pressed the phone to my ear. I waited as it rang several times.

“Hello?” Bobby’s voice floated through the phone.

My own voice slipped out softly. “Hello, new papa. How’s our new baby?”

“She’s . . . she’s the most wonderful, beautiful creature I’ve ever known. She already turns her head when I speak.”

I laughed. “
Toward
you, I hope.”

“Unlike you.”

“Ha! And my sis-in-law?”

He sighed. “Greta’s perfect. Okay, she’s exhausted, but to me . . .” He paused. “She’s perfect. I’d let you talk to her but she’s asleep right now.”

“I just wanted to check on you all. I would be there but . . .” I hesitated, not wanting to cloud Bobby’s blissful day. “I’m still in bed, exhausted—what’s my excuse?”

“Callie? Thanks so much for being here last night. Greta’s so grateful. I am too.”

“My pleasure. And I can’t wait to hold the little sunshine again. You doing okay?”

“Better than okay. I’ve been holding her here for more than an hour—and yeah, my arm’s asleep—but I’ve had an epiphany about my business.”

“The storage center?”

“Yes. It’s like I’ve been afraid of going forth at full speed, Callie. Jim’s always been the smart one in the family, you know, the one with all the education. It occurred to me that I’ve never thought myself smart enough to be trusted with running a full-fledged business.”

“You’re kidding? But you’ve been doing that, and expanding, and—”

“And leaning on Henry as my crutch. You know what Greta said this morning? She said she can’t wait to have another baby.”

Part of me cringed, but another part of me grasped what she said. We all watched her go through some horrendous moments, but in the end she held a tiny, precious life, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that envy had risen like cream to the surface. “That’s beautiful, Bobby.”

“Yeah, it is. I remember her saying that some things were worth the pain, but when she said that, I wasn’t sure if she meant that enough to do it all over again.” He chuckled.

I couldn’t not smile at that.

“So my new baby girl has given me a gift. She’s helping me drop the fear and offering me hope that I can make wise decisions on my own—without the obsessive need for Henry’s advice. If the guy decides not to offer more financing for the expansion, so be it. I may even let him loose myself.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time, Callie. You’re driven by your passions, and I respect that. I know you’re busy, but it meant a lot to us that you were here last night. We hope you know that.”

Moondoggy stirred beside me, so I lowered my voice. “I wouldn’t have missed out on little Heliotrope or Sumner’s birth for anything.”

Bobby’s voice garbled into laughter, as if trying to constrain the decibel level in the hospital room.

“What have you decided to name my baby girl, anyway?”

“I forgot you hadn’t heard. We’ve named her Callie, um, Callie.” He chuckled again.

My breath held and with it a torrent of tears backed up against my eyes. I swallowed, trying to wash them back where they came from, but they only grew in number.

“You okay?”

I nodded, knowing full well Bobby could not see my response. “Yes.” My voice cracked. “Are you serious about that?”

“Already told the nurse who’s having it put on the birth certificate. Can’t imagine what it will be like with two Callies in my life.”

“Trouble, maybe?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Buoyed by Bobby’s news, I hung up the phone and pulled myself out of bed. Baby Callie? Had they really named her after me? Astonished, I shook my head, still unbelieving.

And my brother’s about-face regarding his investor also stirred me, bringing out my own kind of resolve. Gage Mitchell had been nothing but kind from the day I met him. We disagreed on the Kitteridge property, but he wasn’t from here. He couldn’t know what a sad loss that would be to this community. I thought about what Greta had said about pain, and how some things were worth it. Maybe it was time to let my heart take a chance again.

The phone buzzed, causing Moondoggy to snuffle and yelp. Ruth. What could she possibly say that could sully my near perfect mood?

GAGE

A VIRTUAL CHAIN-LAYERED cloak lay across Gage’s shoulders. He should be at work. He had much to do and much to talk over with his client, but his heart had disconnected from the project. Instead, Marc’s insistence that he get his rear end into church drove him to this stranger’s home on a Monday night. It wasn’t church, but it’d do.

Slowly he wove his way up to the front door of the redwood-clad house and knocked. A tan-darkened man of about fifty with a quick smile opened the door. He remembered his name was Kevin. “Good to see you, Gage. C’mon in. The guys are in the back.”

He drew in a breath, hidden behind a smile that felt anything but natural, and followed Kevin to a family room in the back of the house. A flat screen TV hung from the wall playing ESPN sport’s highlights as several guys looked on from a leather couch. At the other end of the room, three guys hovered over a table filled with chips and drinks, talking about whatever.

Kevin switched off the TV to a throng of groans. “All right, looks like everyone’s here. Let’s get started, okay?” He stopped and pointed his Bible at Gage. “By the way, that’s Gage Mitchell. Gage? This is everyone.”

Gage raised a hand in a wave and found a chair in the back. Even though he barely knew the men in this room, having only seen them the one time he stepped into church after moving to Otter Bay, a strange sense of belonging moved through him. He only wished Marc were here too. Marc had a way of shining a light on Scripture while entertaining him with witty and insightful questions of his own.

“Okay, so Gage, we’ve been working our way through Mark,” Kevin said. “Just follow along and don’t feel obligated to add anything unless you want to.”

Gage nodded, forcing his mind to pay attention. How appropriate that they were studying the book of Mark. His friend would take that as God’s way of not allowing Gage to forget his buddy. Like he ever could.

A man on the couch spoke, but Gage missed it. Another guy spoke up. “But don’t forget, when Peter tried to correct Jesus—by suggesting that his prediction of his own imminent death was wrong—Jesus rebuked him.”

“That’s right,” Kevin said. “Jesus told him flat out that he did not have in his mind the things of God, but only the things of men.”

Another guy he remembered as Barry called out, “Yeah. What Jesus was telling them was so opposite of what seemed right for the Messiah. But it was all about doing the right thing, the work that Jesus had come to earth to do. And by suggesting he do otherwise, Peter was sinning against God.”

Kevin took the floor again. “We do that whenever we do the opposite of what God wants, even if we’re only trying to save our own butts.”

“The moral of the story is God’s way is hard,” one guy said. “Study over.”

Kevin continued. “Not so fast. It’s not that his way is hard, but purposeful. Listen to this, from Mark 8:37: ‘What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?’”

The words pounded in his brain, like a needling headache, just like the same verse had done six months earlier when he’d walked off his job—actually, he’d confronted his boss and then been
thrown out
the door. His coworkers had shaken their heads. “Let it go, man.” They’d said. “Look the other way. It’s not your problem.”

But that’s not how he was raised.

The men in the room had stopped on this one passage, the debate among them growing louder and more animated. Gage couldn’t keep up and longed to dart back down the hallway and out the front door. If he were to ask the tough questions, and discover answers he could not live with, would he have the courage to walk again? Even though his sister and nephew relied on his support so much?

Or would he risk his own soul for good intentions?

A brown-haired woman with glasses and a sweet smile caught his eye as she stepped shyly into the room carrying a white-frosted cake. Quietly, she deposited the dessert on the back table, followed by a miniature replica of herself, a young girl of about ten, carrying plates and silverware. The woman left and returned again with a pot of coffee and tray of mugs.

She must have given Kevin the signal because he closed his Bible. “Let’s take a break and get some dessert. We’ll pick up with Mark 8:38 in a few minutes.” The men clamored to the back table while Gage picked up his Bible.

Kevin approached him. “Hope we didn’t scare you away.”

“Not at all. I just need to head back to my office tonight.”

Kevin squinted at the clock on the wall. “Tonight?” He shrugged. “Well, glad you could stop by, if only for a while.”

Gage nodded. “Appreciate you having me—more than you know.”

Chapter Thirty-three

I’d been living in la-la land. That was it. A fantasyland of possibilities with absolutely no grounding in reality. Funny how one call could swing the emotions from one end of the jungle to the other and cause a person to realize just how much they were beginning to resemble a monkey.

My conversation with Ruth was brief.

“Pledges have halted.”

“What do you mean
halted?
Maybe they’ve just slowed or have come in a bit lower than others.”

“No, they’ve stopped. Altogether. The team thinks it was your mug in the paper last week that did us in.”

I breathed in and back out. “I see. How short are we?”

“Well, that’s just it. Not only have the pledges stopped, but of those that had already come in, half of ’em have not been paid.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it?
Okay?
Because if you ask me, this is not okay. Time is running out and if a miracle doesn’t happen, we will have failed. Do you want that on your head?”

I should have stayed on top of things. Should have been checking my phone and answering calls and updating Stephanie with prayer requests. But I’d gotten complacent. I figured that SOS had been set in motion like a giant mill-house wheel that drew water continuously from a pond.

“Don’t forget, I’ve got that radio interview at noon tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be able to make one last-ditch effort to save our cause.”

“You mean
shores.
Save our
shores.
”

“Right.” We hung up, and I placed a call to June Kitteridge.

“Hello?”

“June, this is Callie Duflay. How are you and Timothy doing?”

“Oh, not good. Not good at all. Timothy’s been more agitated than a washing machine on the spin cycle. Says everyone’s out to get us. Are you calling to give us good news?”

I shut my eyes, trying to draw courage from some invisible place. “June, we’re in trouble. The money’s not coming in and without a miracle, I . . . I don’t want to say what might happen.”

“We’ll be forced to sell our property, won’t we?” Her voice sounded so small. “It is very difficult to think about, Callie. But it is not your fault, dear. I have seen your efforts and you have tried so hard for us.”