Barefoot in the Sand (2 page)

And life
was
dear. Troubled, stressful, messy, not everything she dreamed it would be, but dear. Lacey Armstrong was not about to give it up to Mother Nature’s temper tantrum.

“Reach around me and help me hold this thing down,” Lacey demanded, her fingernails breaking as she dug into the quilted tufts, desperate for a grip.

Her arms screaming with the effort, she clung to the mattress, closed her eyes, and listened to the sounds of that dear life literally falling apart around her.

It wasn’t much, this old house she’d inherited from her grandparents, built with big dreams and little money, but it was all she had.

No, it wasn’t, she reminded herself again. All she had was quivering and crying underneath her. Everything else was just stuff. Wet, ruined, storm-tattered
stuff
. They were alive and they had each other and their wits and dreams and hopes.

“This is a nightmare, Mom.” Ashley’s sob silenced Lacey’s inner litany of life-support platitudes.

“Just hold on, Ash. We’ll make it. I’ve been through worse.” Hadn’t she?

Wasn’t it worse to return to Mimosa Key a pregnant college dropout, facing her mother’s bitter and brutal disappointment? Wasn’t it worse to stare into David Fox’s dreamy, distant eyes and say “I’m going to keep this baby,” only for him to announce he was on his way to a sheep farm in Patagonia?

Pata-frickin’-gonia. It still ticked her off, fourteen years later.

She was
not
going to die, damn it. And neither was Ashley. She stole a look over her shoulder, meeting her daughter’s petrified gaze.

“Listen to me,” Lacey demanded through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Ashley managed a nod.

They just had to hang on and… pray. Because most people would be cutting some sweet deals with God at a time like this. But Lacey wasn’t most people, and she
didn’t make deals with anybody. She made plans. Lots of plans that never—

A strong gust lifted the mattress, pulling a scream from her throat as rain and wind and debris whipped over them, and then part of the ceiling thudded down on the mattress. With the weight of saturated drywall and insulation holding their makeshift roof in place, Lacey could let go of the mattress. Relieved, she worked a space on the edge where the tub curved down to give them some air and finally let her body squeeze in next to Ashley.

Now Lacey could think of something else besides survival.

After survival, comes… what? Facing the stark truth that everything was gone. What was she going to do with no home, no clothes, no struggling cake-baking business, and maybe no customers remaining on Mimosa Key to buy her cookies and cupcakes?

The answer was the thunderous roar of the rest of the second floor being ripped away as if an imaginary giant had plucked a weed from his garden. Instantly rain dumped on them.

Once the roof was gone the vacuum dissipated, and, except for the drumbeat of rain on the mattress, it was almost quiet.

“Is this the eye of the storm?” Ashley asked.

Lacey adjusted her position again to curl around Ashley’s slender frame. “I don’t know, honey. Hey, look what I brought you.”

She fished out the unicorn from behind her and laid it on Ashley’s chest. Even in the darkness she could see Ashley smile, her eyes bright with tears.

“Aunt Zoe’s uni. Thank you, Mommy.”

Mommy
just about folded her heart in half.

“Shhh.” She stroked Ashley’s hair, trying to be grateful for the rare moment when her daughter didn’t roll her eyes or whip out her cell phone to text a friend. “We’re gonna be fine, angel. I promise.”

But could she keep that promise? When the storm passed, the home her grandfather had christened Blue Horizon House would be little more than a memory sitting on a stretch of pristine beach known as Barefoot Bay.

But Mimosa Key would still be here. Nothing could wipe away this barrier island or the people who called this strip of land home. Like Lacey, most of the residents were the children and grandchildren of the first group of twentieth-century pioneers who’d built a rickety wooden causeway to take them to an island haven in the Gulf of Mexico.

And nothing could rid Mimosa Key of its natural resources, like magical Barefoot Bay with its peach-toned sunsets or the fluffy red flowers that exploded like fireworks every spring, giving the island its name. Nothing could stop the reliable blue moon that sparkled like diamonds on the black velvet Gulf every night.

If Mimosa Key survived, so would Lacey.

And there is such a thing as insurance, a pragmatic voice insisted.

Insurance would cover the value of the house, and she owned the land, so Lacey could rebuild. Maybe this was her chance to finally turn the big old beach cottage into a B and B, a dream she’d nurtured for years, one she’d promised both her grandparents she’d pursue when they’d left her the house and all the land around it.

But life had gotten in the way of that promise. And now she had nothing.

Instead of wallowing in that reality, she let the B and B idea settle over her heart once again, the idea of finally,
finally
seeing one of her dreams come true carrying her through the rest of the storm while Ashley drifted off into a fitful sleep.

By the time the howling had softened to a low moan and the rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, the first silver threads of dawn were weaving through the air space she’d made. It was time to face the aftermath of the storm. Using all the strength she had left, Lacey managed to push the soaked mattress to the floor.

“Oh my God.” Ashley’s voice cracked with whispered disbelief as she emerged. “It’s all gone.”

Yes, it was. A dilapidated old house that was more trouble than it was ever worth had been washed away by Hurricane Damien’s clean-up campaign. Lacey’s heart was oddly light in the face of the devastation. Buoyed, in fact, with possibilities.

“Don’t worry,” she said, gingerly navigating the debris, peering into the early morning light. “It’s not the end of the world.” It was the beginning.

“How can you say that, Mom? There’s nothing left!”

A few drops of warm tropical rain splattered her face, but Lacey wiped the water from her cheek and stepped over broken wall studs wrapped in shredded, sopping-wet attic insulation.

“We have insurance, Ashley.”

“Mom! Our house is gone!”

“No, the
building’s
gone. The beach is here. The sun will shine. The palm fronds will grow back.”

Her imagination stirred again, nudged alive by the reality of what she saw around her. She could do this.
This land—and the insurance money—could be used to make a dream come true.

Beside her Ashley sniffed, wiping a fresh set of tears. “How can you talk about palm fronds? We don’t even have a—oh!” She dropped to her knees to retrieve a muddy video-game remote. “My Wii!”

“Ashley.” Lacey reached for her, pulling her up to hold her close. “Baby, we have each other. We’re alive, which is pretty much a miracle.”

Ashley just squeezed her eyes shut and nodded, working so hard to be strong and brave.

“I know it hurts, Ashley, but this”—she took the broken remote and pitched it—“is just
stuff
. We’ll get more, better stuff. What matters is that we’ve made it through and, you know, I’m starting to think this hurricane was the best thing that ever happened to us.”

Ashley eyes popped open with an incredulous look. “Are you nuts?”

Maybe she was, but insane optimism was all she had right now.

“Think about it, Ash. We can do anything with this property now. We don’t have to pay to remodel a sixty-year-old house; we can start from scratch and make it amazing.” Her voice rose as the idea sprouted to life and took hold of her heart. “You know I’ve always dreamed of opening an inn or B and B, something all mine that would be an oasis, a destination.”

Ashley just closed her eyes as if she couldn’t even compute an
oasis
right then. “But if you couldn’t figure out a way to make it happen when you had an actual house, how can you now?”

The truth stung, but Lacey ignored the pain. This time
she wouldn’t make excuses, that was how. She wouldn’t be scared of not finishing what she started and she wouldn’t let anyone’s disapproval make her doubt herself. Not anymore.

“Old Mother Nature just handed us a ‘get out of jail free’ pass, kiddo,” she said, giving Ashley’s shoulder a squeeze. “And you know what? We’re taking it.”

S
ix Weeks Later

He’s probably at lunch
.

He wouldn’t take a job this small
.

He might refuse to come to Florida in August
.

Lacey had plenty of reasons why she shouldn’t press the Call button and ask to speak with Clayton Walker, president and CEO of Walker Architecture and Design. A trickle of sweat meandered down her back and trailed into the waistband of the cutoffs Ashley had pronounced too short for a mom to wear.

Too short? Too bad. She could walk around Barefoot Bay naked if she wanted to. Ever since the storm had ravaged the north hook of the island, she and Ashley had been alone out here at the beach. The insurance adjusters had come and gone, promising the rebuilding money, and the
bulldozers had already leveled the storm-damaged house. Lacey’s two neighbors, one to the north and one to the south and neither very close by, had bailed after settling their claims and promising to sell her their lots for a song.

The next step in her ambitious scheme didn’t require age-appropriate attire, anyway. Her sweaty finger streaked the smooth glass of her phone, but before she dialed, she set the phone on the picnic table, one of the few items she’d salvaged from the storm.

What was stopping her from calling the architect?

Fear of rejection? Of course, an architect with Clayton Walker’s outstanding credentials, reputation, and portfolio of glorious hotels and resorts might not want to design her beachfront bed-and-breakfast.

But he
had
responded to her e-mail personally. And he
had
said, “Call when you have the insurance money and I’ll take a look at the property.”

She swiped beads of sweat from her upper lip and scooted the bench closer to the table, trying to slide into the one slice of shade formed by the trunk of a royal poinciana that had survived the storm. Peering through humidity-drenched curls, she studied her daughter at the water’s edge a few hundred feet of burning sand away. Madly texting, something she’d been doing more and more of lately, Ashley seemed oblivious to the squawking seagulls fluttering around her.

Ashley had rebounded remarkably after the storm, moving into Lacey’s parents’ house with a fairly positive attitude, probably since living down on the south end of the island put her closer to more kids she’d be going to Mimosa High with in a few weeks.

Most of the twelve-mile-long barrier island hadn’t fared
quite as poorly as the northern end, where Barefoot Bay was located. South of Center Street they’d lost only screens and roof tiles, and a few windows. Businesses were all open in town and life was nearly back to normal down there. Even still, Lacey’s parents had decided to stay longer up north with her brother, giving Lacey and Ashley a place to live.

Good thing, because if Marie Armstrong were breathing down Lacey’s neck right now, harping on the complete impossibility of these plans, Lacey would never have the nerve to make this call.

She angled the phone and eyed the architect’s name, imagining the conversation with a man she considered a legend. She’d seen his picture on the company Web site and on the Internet. The guy looked like Colonel Sanders with all that white hair and a Southern-gentleman bow tie. How scary could he be?

Okay. It was time. She turned so the sight of Ashley wouldn’t distract her, and put her finger on the phone.

Wait
.

Should she call him Mr. Walker? His e-mail seemed so casual, at least for an architectural genius. So maybe he wouldn’t want—

A voice floated up from the beach. A male voice.

Lacey glanced over her shoulder, inhaling a quick breath at the sight of a man five feet away from Ashley. A half-naked man, wearing nothing but low-hanging board shorts and sockless sneakers. Shaggy hair, big muscles, and, dear God, was that a tattoo on his arm?