Playing the Part

“I want to talk to her.”

“About what?” he asked, incredulous. Carys’s mouth tightened, telling him he wasn’t going to get an answer. He signaled for the check with a brusque motion. “This is getting ridiculous, Carys. I’ve tried to be understanding. I’ve tried to be accommodating but you’ve stonewalled me at every turn. What does Lindy Bell—a stranger, I might add—offer you that I haven’t?”

“You wouldn’t understand because you don’t listen,” she muttered, glancing away. “She understands because she lost her mom, too. And she says it’s good to talk about it.”

Gabe stared, hit by the knowledge that in one conversation Lindy had managed to reach his daughter when he had failed repeatedly. He also realized that Lindy had forged a tenuous bond with Carys through a similar experience. But Lindy wasn’t the kind of person Gabe would like his daughter hanging out with on a regular basis. From what he could tell, it was likely Lindy didn’t care about the things he felt were important and hoped to instill in his daughter. Maybe it was unfair to judge a book by its cover but he didn’t have the luxury of getting past the surface when his daughter was involved. “I’m sorry, Carys. I don’t think that’s a good idea. We don’t know Lindy very well and she might seem like a very nice person but I’d rather not invite strangers into our business.”

Once again he was the bad guy, he thought with an unhappy sigh. But he had broad shoulders. He could take it. Carys would realize someday that he was only doing what was best for her.

He just hoped their relationship didn’t sustain irreparable damage between now and then.

CHAPTER FIVE

LINDY RETURNED FROM the marina and went in search of something to eat. She found her grandfather puttering around in the kitchen, fixing himself a sandwich. She slid onto the barstool and smiled with love in her heart for the old guy. He hadn’t changed much physically. Maybe his hair had a bit more gray and he wasn’t as robust as he once was but he still had that same indescribable quality about him that made him Pops. Even if he was slowly losing his grip on reality.

“Whatcha got there, Pops?” Lindy asked, bending to take a sniff of his plate and opening her mouth as if she were going to gobble it down right there in front of him.

“Hey now, get your own,” he warned and pulled the plate from the snap of her jaws. “There’s plenty. Celly just stocked the pantries.”

Lindy cocked her head. “Celly?” she asked, curious. “She does the shopping now?”

“Well, your grams...she’s hard to find these days for the little stuff, like grocery shopping and whatnot, so Celly offered to do the shopping. She’s also a great cook. Have you tried her boiled bananas yet? Damn near as good as anything they sell at The Wild Donkey.”

“The Wild Donkey,” Lindy murmured, remembering the popular local hangout. “I can’t believe they’re still in business.”

“Nothing much changes around here, just the people,” Pops remarked, taking a hefty bite of what appeared to be a turkey and cranberry sandwich with lots of sprouts. “Mmm...that’s good,” he said with a grunt of approval. “Your grams talked Celly into all this healthy stuff and at first I was skeptical, but damn if she doesn’t have me eating like a rabbit and liking it, besides. Wonders never cease, huh?”

Lindy smiled as she pulled the fixings for her own sandwich. “So...Pops...how is Grams feeling these days?” she asked, feeling out the framework of Pops’s elaborate fantasy. “She okay?”

“Fit as a fiddle,” Pops answered with a faint scowl as if he were annoyed that Lindy had even asked. “Why? She say something to you?”

Lindy’s mouth curved in a faint smile as sadness brushed across her thoughts. She’d been fifteen when Grams had gotten sick. It’d been a horrible time. Sometimes she wished she could forget, too. Lindy blinked back the sudden moisture in her eyes and focused on her sandwich. “Nope,” she answered brightly, slathering mayo on her bread. “Just making sure everyone’s good and healthy. I’ve been gone awhile so you know, just want to make sure I haven’t missed anything important.”

“Everything’s fine, sugar bird,” he assured her with a smile, biting into his sandwich. “Everything’s just fine.”

“Good.” She dumped a handful of turkey on her bread with a little more force than necessary. Pops looked up with a quizzical expression and she forced a laugh. “Oops. My bad.”

Pops switched subjects without her needing to, saying, “Lindy...I’m worried about Lilah. I think she’s going through something...and you two have always been so close. Maybe you could talk to her?”

“Sure, Pops,” Lindy answered, sprinkling her sandwich with a liberal dose of salt and pepper. She liked it almost inedible to most tastes. The first time her friends had watched her doctor her Subway sandwich they’d nearly fallen over in shock. Of course, it could’ve also been for the fact that she was eating a full six-inch instead of cutting it in half to save for the following day. She sank her teeth into the sandwich and groaned in happiness. “What makes you think Lilah is bothered by something?” she asked around the bite in her mouth. “She seemed okay to me yesterday.”

Actually, that wasn’t entirely true, now that she thought about it. But then Lilah had always orbited her own planet and no one thought to question her flight pattern. Lindy loved her twin desperately, but she did worry about her at times. She’d tried to get her to move to Los Angeles, but even as the offer had fallen from her mouth she knew that was never going to happen. Lilah in Los Angeles would be like feeding a lamb to the lions. She’d stick out like a sore thumb in Lindy’s circles; worse, some sleazy producer type might try to sleep with her. Lindy sighed and took another bite. “Yeah,” she repeated, mostly to herself. “I’ll talk to her, Pops.”

“I knew I could count on you.” He rose from the table and tossed his trash, then brushed a quick, smacking kiss on her cheek. She smiled at the contact and watched as he went on his merry way, likely to go find his wife.

How did someone lose their grip on reality like Pops? He seemed completely lucid, unless you considered the fact that he held conversations with a woman who’d been dead for almost ten years. It broke her heart, but what could she do? Pushing reality on him seemed to make it worse—Lora had learned that the hard way—but eventually his grip on everything was going to slip, right? She hated to think of that moment, so she didn’t. Finishing her sandwich, she burped with total satisfaction just as Lora walked in and gave her a disgusted look. “What? In Europe that’s considered a compliment to the chef.”

“We’re not in Europe,” Lora reminded her. “Hey, I’m glad I found you. We’re going to have a family meeting tonight to discuss the situation with Larimar. It’s time to start implementing some strategies.”

She groaned at the overly bright light in Lora’s eyes. In her previous life—before she lost her job and Heath dragged her back to St. John to help fix this mess facing the resort—she’d been something of a marketing shark. And judging by the look on her face, she missed the action. Likely, if she saw a spreadsheet she’d shudder with ecstasy. But Lindy wasn’t hardwired that way. She hated the words marketing strategy, loss leader and anything that would compel someone to open an Excel spreadsheet. But she hadn’t returned home to hang out and spruce up her Caribbean tan. She was here to pitch in. More’s the pity. She sighed grumpily. “What time?”

Pleased with the fact that Lindy hadn’t tried to get out of it, Lora actually smiled as she grabbed a banana on the go. “How about seven? That way dinner is out of the way.”

“Good. And drinks can follow,” Lindy quipped, adding drily, “and they should. Lots of them if we’re going to get through the evening without killing one another.”

Lora’s smile faded, but she didn’t call Lindy out for her bad attitude. Thank God for small favors. Lindy wasn’t in the mood to start a word war with her older sister.

“Did you apologize to Mr. Weston?”

Lindy chewed her bottom lip as she quickly processed an easy answer to her sister’s pointed question. She could tell the truth, but then that would lead to all sorts of exclamations and recriminations over her bad attitude and the consequences of her sharp tongue—blah, blah, blah—and since it had all turned out fine in the end...

“Yep,” Lindy answered with a short smile.

“Good.” Lora smiled, seeming relieved. “I have to confess I was a little worried you might make things worse.”

Lindy scowled. “If you thought that, why’d you insist I apologize?”

Lora’s smile widened. “It was a leap of faith. I think.”

Lindy bit back the sarcasm dancing on her tongue. She supposed she couldn’t be too peeved; in a way her sister’s fear had been accurate. But at least Lindy had managed to fix things, and that’s what counted anyway.

“One less reason to worry. Thanks, Lindy,” Lora said and breezed from the room.

Lindy rubbed her full stomach and headed to her room to grab her iPod. She was hoping to catch some rays before the day was finished, and the sun was quickly sinking into the horizon.

Of course, as luck would have it, that was not in the cards.

“Miss Bell?” A voice called out at her back and she grimaced, recognizing the firm timbre as belonging to Carys’s father, Gabe Weston. She pivoted on her heel and pasted on a perfunctory smile for his benefit in an effort to be nice.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I wondered if I might talk to you for a minute.... It’s about Carys.”

A ripple of unease followed. “What’s wrong? Everything okay? What’s the kid done now?”

“Nothing,” he answered with a faint scowl.

“Oh, c’mon. You and I both know the kid’s got devil juice running through her veins. Don’t get me wrong...I like her, but...yeah, she’s a handful. We pulled out another tie, by the way. Would you like me to show you the plumber’s bill now or later?”

“Another one?”

“Well, to be fair, we think it was part of the original batch she sent whizzing down our pipes, but it got stuck and the plumber managed to fish it out. Something tells me you aren’t going to want it back.”

“Ah...sorry about that. Send me the bill. I’ll cover it.”

“Oh, it’s on your bill,” she assured him with a smile. “At this rate, the plumber is going to send you a fruit basket in appreciation.”

At his sharp look, her grin brightened and he faltered, clearly not quite sure what to think of her. She didn’t hold his confusion against him. Most people didn’t know what to think of her. It was part of her charm. At least, that was how she liked to think of it. He recovered after a moment and returned to his original train of thought. “Listen, my daughter seems to have taken a shine to you....”