Buck's Landing (A New England Seacoast Romance) (11 page)

She thought of the bookshelf in her apartment in D.C. Photos of her summer camp “sisters,” her college friends, a recent ski trip to Lake Tahoe with a few friends from her work life, a bachelorette party in Las Vegas. It was almost as though there were two of her, the happy little girl and the satisfied woman.

The years between were the ones missing from the collage. Her thoughts strayed to the shoebox under her bed full of that teenage girl’s memories. Her father didn’t have those photographs; she’d left them sealed away when she escaped. She thought she’d made a clean split from that broken girl.

She knew the truth now. The split was anything but clean. The wound was ragged, the scar tissue lumpy and disfigured. She’d assumed it was past reopening, but in her deepest heart she’d also assumed there would be time to reconcile with her father on her own terms. Instead, his memory was held by a man with a charming smile and an appealing steadiness, a man who insisted on sharing it with her when all she wanted to do was forget.

When she went back to bed, it was to an uneasy sleep, pursued by dreams of gray kittens, fishing rods, and the smell of marinara.

SEVEN

Uneasy sleep gave way to an uneasy day. Storm clouds threatened the coast, which left the Landing with fewer customers. Without a steady stream of business, Sofia took herself out to inspect the course. Sprucing it up would improve her chances of selling quickly and closer to her asking price.

The replica of the Piscataqua Bridge on the first tee needed some touch-up paint. She thought of the real bridge, the crossing to Maine. With a sigh, she realized she’d been in town almost two months and hadn’t driven up to Portland or even over to Kittery to hit the outlet stores. Once the papers were signed, it wouldn’t matter. She’d be heading south again.

The Sphinx on the fourth hole, to whose open mouth a ramp rose, had a few divots in the concrete that needed patching. The promotion to Luxelle was nearly in her grasp. This time next year, Egypt might just be a jaunt across the Mediterranean.

The tree on the twelfth hole needed another bleaching. The shade and the proximity to the water feature left it perpetually mildewed. There were faint scratches on the trunk from its run in with Houdini. Her thoughts strayed again to Silas.

So often when they were together, she forgot her hurt and anxiety, forgot that selling Buck’s Landing was the endgame. She let herself drift with the summer current, enjoying Silas’s company. He made her laugh; he smoothed her rough edges. He walked an unsullied world, unshadowed by dark memories. She reveled in the pleasure they found together. Even when it came to the two of them, he was sure about where he stood. Far more so than she was about herself.

Elliot’s call had been a splash of cold water after the heat of the evening’s emotions and passion. Silas had left early for his morning run; she’d barely been able to lift her head from the pillow after too little sleep.

She looked at a few more of the putting greens, but her head simply wasn’t in the game. She checked the time on her phone. Amy would be in to cover the evening shift shortly. The day’s meager take would need to be tallied before Sofia turned the register over. She only just made it to the cashier window before the sky opened, followed by gusty winds. A menace of thunderheads gathered to the southwest while the rain blew sideways over the Astroturf.

Amy raced in a short while later, soaked from the rain, a telltale splatter of muddy water on the backs of her legs.

“Oh, no.” Sofia grabbed the nearby paper towel roll. “You rode your bike in.”

The young woman shucked her sopping sweatshirt and hung it up. “I thought I could beat the worst of it.”

“Come on upstairs,” Sofia offered. “Let me lend you some dry clothes.”

Amy mopped her face and wrung out her ponytail with her wet shirt. “Sure. Thanks.”

Sofia put up the sign redirecting customers to the ice cream window and called to Gavin that she and Amy were going up. They ran out the back and up the stairs to the apartment. Sofia grabbed a towel from the bathroom, and tossed it on her bed with a pair of her shorts and one of the Buck’s Landing staff shirts she’d claimed from her father’s closet. She found Amy smiling at an old family photo on the mantle.

“There’s a towel and dry things on the bed.”

Amy turned around, blushing. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t snooping. Your mother was beautiful. You look like her.”

“Thank you.” Sofia went to the fridge to avoid Amy’s earnest expression.

Amy came out a few moments later holding the towel. Sofia took it. “I poured you some iced tea.”

“Thanks.” Amy stuffed her empty hand in her pocket. The awkward silence stretched until the younger woman spoke. “I love that fuchsia dress.”

Sofia had forgotten about the dress, hung up on her closet door in anticipation of her evening out. She grinned, the awkwardness diffused by fashion. “I bought it on a whim a few weeks ago up in Portsmouth. That little shop up the road from The Lunch Counter.”

“‘Fête?” Amy lit up. “I love that store.”

“I was going to wear it to dinner at Orionis on Sunday.” She wished she had experience with sisters. Was she over sharing?

Amy spoke, interrupting her doubts. “With Mr. Wilde?”

“Yeah.” Sofia felt a flush burn her cheeks. Amy looked away quickly. Sofia put a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Amy reassured her.

If there was one thing Sofia understood, it was false brightness.

“Pardon my French,” she said, “but bullshit.”

Amy’s chin quivered. Sofia pushed down some guilt. She didn’t know the girl well enough to bully a confession out of her, and she’d never had a sister to trade advice with, just girlfriends, all of them together in the trenches of whatever youthful misery was en vogue. As she’d said to Judy, she kind of sucked at confiding.

“It’s just stupid guy stuff,” Amy muttered.

Sofia had a sudden urge to demand the offending male’s name before marching off to drag him back by his scruff to beg forgiveness. She hated that some boy had the power to take the shine off her favorite employee.

Instead, she settled in to hear the young woman out. “I can be a good listener.”

“I’ve been kind of seeing this guy this year,” she began.

Sofia hopped up on a counter, settling in for the long haul.

“He told me this afternoon that he thinks we should break up.” Amy swiped at her eyes. “We drove up to Kittery to pick out some stuff for my apartment in the fall, and he was all, ‘I don’t think long-distance will work for us, so why are we wasting the summer?’”

Sofia let out a breath, while Amy went on. There was no point interrupting.

“How is having a great summer together before I go wasting it?” she asked. “If he doesn’t want to be with me after, I get it, but why can’t we keep going ’til I leave?”

Her tears spilled over just as the rain outside began to let up. Sofia handed Amy a tissue.

“I got a text from one of my friends. She saw him at the movies just now with a bunch of people, and there was some skanky girl hanging all over him. I feel really stupid.” Amy blew her nose wetly.

Sofia handed her another tissue. She’d dated, certainly, in high school, and fooled around her fair share in college, but she’d never allowed herself to get close, to get serious, about any boy from the area. She hadn’t been interested in tying herself to Hampton, knowing she planned to run and never look back.

“I know this is going to sound like a platitude,” Sofia said gently, “but maybe it’s for the best.”

Amy looked at her wide-eyed.

“You’re off to New Haven, to a graduate degree at Yale in the fall, and he’s off to…” She trailed off, realizing she had no idea if Amy’s boyfriend was going anywhere.

“He’s not going anywhere,” she said quietly. “He works in Manchester.”

“Oh, Amy,” she said. “You don’t want to be tied to home. You’re going to meet people, men, from all over, and then after school, the whole world. I know it hurts now.” She collected the tissues and dropped them in the trash basket under the kitchen sink. “But you’ll be free of this place in just a few weeks, really.”

“Free from Hampton? Why would I want that?” Amy asked.

Sofia recalled the pressing weight of her own need to escape. “Don’t you want to travel, to live? Can’t you feel the world at your feet right now?”

“Hampton is my home. My family’s here. I grew up here, just like you. I’ll always be tied to this place. I want to be ready to fight for the beach, to keep the town from overdeveloping, to make sure the old businesses don’t all fade away.” Her face was ablaze with earnest energy. “Like you are with the Landing. Third generation Buck to own it, my mom says.”

Sofia felt her soul shrivel a little, a dark, brooding heaviness in her chest.

“Look, Amy, you feel that way now—”

“I’m getting my Masters in Environmental Management so I can come back to the seacoast, Sofia. I’ve always wanted that.” She sat up straighter. Sofia recognized the soapbox of youthful enthusiasm coming out. “What you’re doing here, cleaning the place up, making it more of a showpiece? I want to work with owners like you to revitalize the strip without damaging the actual land any more than it is, you know?”

“You’ll be amazing.” Sofia gazed at Amy’s idealistic glow. Her tears forgotten, she pulsed with dreams. “I’m sorry I won’t be here to see it.”

“What do you mean?” Amy’s glow faltered.

“I never meant to stay on at the Landing for good.” Some of the heaviness in her chest cracked apart. “I’ve listed it with Kevin Landry’s office up in Portsmouth.”

“Listed it?” Amy’s eyes went wide. “Not for development?”

Sofia swallowed the urge to snap at Amy. “For whatever purpose the new owner sees fit, within the zoning laws.”

“Oh.” The flat look that crept across the girl’s face turned Sofia’s stomach. She let anger have the moment.

“Did you really think I was here to stay?” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that?”

“I don’t know what I thought.” Amy squared her shoulders. “It’s really none of my business, anyway.”

Sofia had the uncomfortable sensation of being dismissed in her own apartment. She pulled out her phone to check the time. “You should head down. Gavin won’t be able to handle too much business on his own.”

Amy’s cheeks stained. “Listen, Sofia,” she said, “I was out of line, and I’m sorry. I get a little carried away sometimes.”

“You made a strong point,” Sofia conceded, “and I reacted badly.” Better to smooth things over with her favorite employee. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Well,” Amy said, with none of her earlier frosty disapproval, “I should get to work. Thanks for the clothes.”

~~~

Silas’s phone buzzed from his pocket, but he was closing out the registers, so he let the call go to voicemail. With the majority of the day’s take locked away, he felt safer leaving Theo in charge of closing the store. His nephew claimed to enjoy his late shifts, since he’d started hanging around one of the midway hawkers whose shifts ended late, too. She had violet hair, favored snug tops and short shorts, and was an American History major at Harvard who preferred the noise on the strip to an air-conditioned research internship.

To Silas’s horror, she referred to him as Mr. Wilde. He couldn’t decide if Mallory would love the girl or hate her.

Speaking of the devil, Mallory’s name popped up on his missed call alert. He tapped her name and listened to the ring.

“Silas.”

He could hear the smile in his sister’s voice. He could also hear the gears turning. “Mal. What’s up?”

“I was just calling to check on my son.”

Silas chuckled. “No. You talked to him on his dinner break.”

“Fine.” Mallory sighed. “I just wanted to know if there was anything more with that girl.”

“His?” Silas teased. “Or mine?”

“Yours. Of course. My son doesn’t associate with girls.”

“That girl is my age.” He pushed the cash drawer closed and waved the deposit bag at Theo. “Don’t make me sound like some dirty old man.”

“Well, at least she’s not my age. Can’t have you bagged by some cougar.”

“Okay, seriously?” Silas laughed. “She could be older than I am, but I don’t think she’s in her fifties yet.” He braced for screaming.

“Forty, smart boy; I am forty. I ought to write you out of my will for that.”

“Yeah?” Upstairs, he unlocked his safe, and deposited the bag inside for the night. “You planning on leaving me the kid?”

“Wait,” she teased, “I take it back. I think Ted and I are both going to fake our deaths so you have put him through three more years of college.”

Silas grabbed a beer from the fridge and popped the top. Houdini slept, sprawled among a pile of disemboweled catnip mice, his round kitten belly rising and falling with the peace of a contented creature.

“Good plan.” He sat in a ratty thrift store armchair he’d rescued. The sun was just beginning to sink, tinting the light that fell on Buck’s Landing a rosy gold. His gaze fell on the gauzy sweater he’d peeled from Sofia’s shoulders the night before. In his haste to get her out of her clothes, the wrap must have fallen over the railing, landing at the bottom of the stairs. He’d nearly slipped on it that morning leaving her apartment. She’d barely been able to lift her head to kiss him goodbye; he wasn’t about to knock on her door again. Bringing it inside to return to her later seemed the chivalrous thing to do. “I’m sure Theo will love community college and slaving for his slacker uncle Silas.”