Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3)
Hatteras Girl
Books by Alice J. Wisler
Rain Song
How Sweet It Is
Hatteras Girl
Hatteras Girl
Copyright © 2010
Alice J. Wisler
Cover design by Paul Higdon
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wisler, Alice J.
Hatteras girl / Alice J. Wisler.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7642-0732–7 (pbk.)
1. Single women—Fiction. 2. Outer Banks (N.C.)—Fiction. 3. Bed and breakfast accommodations—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.I846H38 2010
813’.6—dc22
2010016287
For Carl,
who convinced me to grow old with him
“To be satisfied with what one has;
that is wealth.”
—M
ARK
T
WAIN
CONTENTS
Seated at the mahogany counter
on a wobbly barstool, I wait for Mr. Wealthy and Available. As I sip my Diet Pepsi, I run my index finger across the grooves in the wood, pretending that I’m admiring the surface and the way the overhead lights bring out the soft shine. Really, I’m eavesdropping. Other people’s conversations are wonderfully fun—particularly those of Outer Banks tourists.
At a table near me, a father with a Boston accent tells his sons that tomorrow they’re going fishing in Pamlico Sound and then to see the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. One of his sons slurps his drink and then asks when they’re going to see the alligators at the wildlife place. I imagine he must be talking about Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.
“Dad, you promised,” the boy says eagerly.
Dad agrees, but not without clarifying the rules: “You two need to eat all your chicken tonight. And no texting at the table.”
James Taylor’s melodic “Carolina in My Mind” fills the restaurant, but I tune my ears to other fragments of chatter.
“I know he’s balding and a little round,” I hear a woman confess to another at the right side of the bar. She sounds like she might be from New York. “But I love the way he treats me.”
“He’s a Red Sox fan,” someone—I presume her friend—says with disdain.
“I know,” comes the reply. “And my team will always be the Orioles.” A sigh follows. “He told me I’m the glittery constellation in his sky. Isn’t that romantic?”
“That is.”
“With true love, baseball shouldn’t matter.”
A giggle forms in my throat, and to squelch it, I quickly lower my head, pick up my pen, and open my notebook. Flipping to a clean page, I draw clusters of miniature globes, add stems to their bases, and place leaves near the petals. After shading them with the tip of my pen, I’m pleased with the garden of geraniums I’ve created.
I’m not as pleased with my reason for being at the Sunnyside Grille tonight. My aunt Sheerly has set me up with yet another man. I hope this one will be all she claims he is. My relatives here in Hatteras have a goal this year—to see a diamond on my finger by December 31. They’re a bunch of sweet folks, worth far more than Blackbeard’s treasures to me, and as hardworking as the summer sun. But lately, I think they’ve gone into overtime trying to find Mr. Right for me. I don’t want to appear finicky; I appreciate their efforts and that’s probably why I’ve been on four blind dates just this spring. Also, I’ll be thirty in August.
The unsuspecting staff of the restaurant thinks I’m here writing up an article for
Lighthouse Views
, the Nags Head magazine I work for. Betty Lynn, barely twenty-one and dressed in a pair of khakis and a yellow T-shirt—the uniform for the Sunnyside Grille employees— stops beside me on her way to a table of guests. She whispers, “Always busy writing. When are you going to interview me?”
Betty Lynn is the type of girl who thinks her good looks and ability to balance a quarter on her nose while sipping juice through a straw are worthy of a magazine article. Actually, my editor usually assigns me interviews with the owners of Outer Banks businesses for features in the magazine.
“I’ll never get a break tonight,” she tells me, fluffing her blond hair. “The hostess didn’t show, so I have to seat guests
and
wait tables.”
“Maybe you’ll get twice as many tips,” I offer hopefully.
Her blue eyes hold doubt.
I glance at my cell phone to check the time. He’s late, this wealthy-and-available man. I wonder if he’s doing a million-dollar business transaction with other successful people. Maybe he’s tied up in a board meeting or taking his yacht for a cruise down to Beaufort.
When Betty Lynn leaves, my mind wanders to wondering why we label folks with money as successful. I think about how God must rate our success and decide it has to be on much different terms. Jesus chose twelve disciples to hang out with, and had they lived today, I don’t think any of their names would appear in
Fortune 500
magazine.
Buck Griffins, one of the waiters, motions toward my empty mason jar. “Would you like more Pepsi?”
Closing my notebook, I give him a smile I’ve been practicing all afternoon. Each time I get ready for a date, I borrow a pair of my housemate and friend Minnie’s gold hoop earrings and smile into my dresser mirror for a while.
“What time is he supposed to be here?” Buck asks as he refills my drink from the soda fountain.
I watch the bubbles float to the top of the glass. “What do you mean?”
Buck grins. “Your date. You are meeting someone, right?” He nods toward the neon green fisherman’s hat I’ve placed beside my notebook.
So much for incognito. Buck knows me too well. Of course, I have suggested the Grille for all of my recent blind dates, and Buck was working at least two of those nights when I entered the restaurant with the fisherman’s hat. Carrying the hat is one way I make it easy for my dates to spot me. When they ask what I look like, I briefly describe my looks and then say I’ll have a bright green fisherman’s hat with me.
Tonight will be better than all those other dates, I tell myself when Buck heads to the end of the counter, where a customer orders a burger.
Please, God, let this Douglas Cannon be pleasant. Oh, more than
that. Let him be interested in me, and me in him.
As I finish the silent prayer, my eyes roam around the restaurant.
There’s an assortment of old-fashioned skillets and Pepsi glasses lining the shelves across the back wall behind the bar. Aunt Sheerly told me the owner picked up these pieces at an auction years ago. The Grille’s décor also includes travel posters of New Orleans— masquerade masks, a jazz band, and patrons dining along a busy section of Bourbon Street. I want to be like one of the couples at a corner table on the poster near me. The woman has a contented look on her slender face, and the man is gazing into her eyes over a plate of what looks to be oysters on the half shell. I catch my reflection in a narrow mirror by the sign for the restrooms, smile, and smooth my straight black hair. Maybe tonight I’ll get to dine with a contented look on my face.
Buck saunters back over to me and picks up my hat. He twirls it around with one finger as a whimsical look stretches across his face. This guy hasn’t changed a bit. He’s as silly as he was when he and my younger brother Ron were kids. The two of them once got away with putting jellyfish into a large pot in the high school cafeteria. I don’t think Mrs. Straybutton ever forgave them for the scare she had when she took the lid off the pot to prepare spaghetti for lunch that day and was greeted by three slimy sea creatures. I overheard her in Principal Miller’s office exclaiming, “Those nasty critters were swimming in filthy water in my kitchen! We must shut the school down and have it cleaned top to bottom! Call the janitor; alert the fire department! Does the mayor know?”
I glance up at Buck and tease, “I just hope you haven’t put any jellyfish in my Pepsi.”
He raises his hands, feigns innocence. “In the whole history of Manteo High, no one has ever proven Ron and I were guilty.”
“You two were lucky.”
Buck’s eyes flicker, and I see that they still hold that childhood mischievousness. He’s had shoulder-length blond hair ever since ninth grade when he and Ron decided to grow their hair out. Watching him place my hat on top of his head, I picture him as he looked at fifteen in swimming trunks—wiry and thin. Now the lines of a muscular chest fill out his yellow Grille T-shirt.
Taking off the hat, he asks, “Do you ever wear these, or just bring them along for show?”
I’m about to tell him how my fishermen’s hat collection started when at my left shoulder I hear a man’s voice. “Excuse me. Are you . . . Jackie Donovan?”
The first thing I notice
is that his voice is deep. When I turn, he’s there in full view. The wondering what he looks like is over. He’s not Johnny Depp, George Clooney, or even my mother’s all-time favorite, Humphrey Bogart, but he’s breathing—and male. In reply to his question, I nod.
“I’m Douglas Cannon.” When he stretches out his arm, it brushes against the woman seated on the stool beside me. He murmurs, “Oh, sorry.”
He’s nervous. It’s not that he’s stuttering, or that his hands are shaking; I just sense that he’s nervous by the way his voice crackles like static in a sound system.
Stepping off the barstool, I steady it as it tilts toward the same woman, then grab my purse. I wait for Buck to hand me my hat. Turning to Douglas, I give him a smile that I hope is kind, happy, and able to set him at ease. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jackie.”
His Adam’s apple moves as he clears his throat. “Shall we get a table?”
As she approaches, Betty Lynn sizes this man up. She glances at the floor and then at his shoes, the ceiling, and then his face. I follow her and Douglas to a table by a window with a view that overlooks the quiet Albemarle Sound.
Seated across from each other, Douglas and I look at our plastic menus in silence. The menu is like the face of an old friend; I almost have it memorized, and usually I have the chicken salad sandwich with coleslaw on the side. Although my favorite item is the bacon cheeseburger, I think I will avoid that tonight. I enjoy this burger best with lots of mustard and mayo, and by the time I’ve added those condiments, it’s too drippy to eat on a first date. The magazines always warn you to be careful about these kinds of things.
Douglas has brown eyes and a sincere look about him, the kind of man who probably believes in justice, truth, and helping old ladies across busy streets. He asks what I’d like to drink. Suddenly, I’m aware that I left my mason jar of Diet Pepsi at the counter and did not offer to pay Buck for it. I relax; I’ll ask Buck to add it to my tab.