Sand Castle Bay

B.J. beamed. “Whatever you need,” he said eagerly.

Before heading into the kitchen, Jerry paused and gave Cora Jane a searching look. “You doing okay? We’ll have this place shipshape in no time. You’re not to fret about it, okay?”

Emily caught the tender look that passed between them. She waited until Jerry and B.J. were gone before asking, “Did anyone else happen to notice the way Jerry was looking at Grandmother just then?”

“Oh, hush! You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cora Jane responded tartly, though there was a surprising blush in her cheeks. “Jerry’s been my right-hand man around here for a lot of years. He was one of your grandfather’s best friends.”

“Looks to me as if he’d like to be more than friends with you,” Samantha chimed in, her eyes alight.

“No question about it, Grandmother,” Gabi added. “Is there something you’d like to tell us?”

Cora Jane regarded each of them with an impatient look. “Don’t think you’re going to throw me off course by trying to turn the tables and meddle in my life,” she said. “Now, let’s get back to work. We’re setting a poor example for the girls who came in here to help out.”

Emily let the subject drop as she picked up her broom and went back to work. Gabi pushed her own pile of debris over to merge with Emily’s.

“You don’t really think there’s something going on between Jerry and Grandmother, do you?” Gabi asked. “You were just trying to rattle her, the way she said.”

Emily shrugged. “I saw something. Maybe it was nothing more than two old friends exchanging a fond look, but it seemed like more to me.”

“Would that be so bad?” Gabi asked, her expression thoughtful. “She must get lonely. Grandfather’s been gone a long time now.”

“I guess I never thought about that,” Emily admitted. “I don’t think kids ever give much thought to their parents being lonely, much less their grandparents.”

“We’re adults, not kids,” Gabi said. “We should be more sensitive.”

“Boone said something very much like that earlier,” Emily admitted.

Gabi grinned. “You’re quoting Boone now. That’s quite a turnabout.”

“Don’t make too much of it,” Emily said. “He just mentioned that, even though Cora Jane let us all go, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t want or need us around from time to time.”

“He’s right about that,” Gabi admitted. “Not even I get over here half as much as I should, and I live closest. Forget about Dad. Until the other day when he drove over to pick her up, I can’t recall the last time he set foot in Sand Castle Bay. He doesn’t even drive crosstown in Raleigh to see me unless I force the issue.”

“Did you honestly expect otherwise?” Emily asked her.

Gabi looked momentarily disconcerted by the question, then laughed self-consciously. “I suppose I did. Crazy, huh? Mom couldn’t even get him to come home for dinner most nights. I guess a part of me was thinking that with Mom gone, he might need company from time to time, maybe even a home-cooked meal.”

Emily regarded her with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Gabi.”

“Don’t be sorry for me. He’s disappointed all of us, Mom included.”

“But I think it affected you the most,” Emily said. “Mom accepted the way things were. Samantha went her own way. So did I. We gave up expecting anything, but you’re the one who’s settled right there in Raleigh, followed in his footsteps, tried to become a part of his world. Now don’t go and take offense at this, but we all know you did that hoping to finally get his attention.”

Gabi didn’t even bother trying to deny it. “I may be in the same field, but I don’t sit over a microscope the way he did,” she said candidly. “I write press releases about other people’s discoveries.”

Emily chuckled. “Worse, you do it for a competitor, who’s wildly successful, in part thanks to your PR work,” she said. “That must give Dad heartburn.”

Gabi grinned. “It isn’t nice to gloat,” she chided.

“Well, it makes me smile. It’s what Dad deserves for not hiring you himself. I know that’s what you really wanted.”

Gabi sighed. “It would have been a disaster. I can see that now. He was right to say no.”

“I’ll give you that,” Emily said. “I’m glad you can finally see it, too. You’d have been miserable having a boss who withholds praise or is too distracted to even notice you’re alive until you make a mistake.”

Gabi frowned. For a minute Emily thought she might jump in and try to defend their father, but instead she let it go. That alone hinted at her disillusioned acceptance of their father’s flaws.

“How’d you and Samantha get along on the ride over?” Gabi asked, deliberately changing the subject.

“Fine,” Emily insisted, a defensive note immediately creeping into her voice. “Why?”

“Because she always seems to get on your last nerve without even trying.”

“Not this time,” Emily swore, “though she does seem to have some crazy idea about me and Boone.”

Gabi laughed. “Sweetie, we all have crazy ideas about you and Boone, even you if you’re being honest with yourself. Tell me you did not just about swoon when you laid eyes on him for the first time today?”

Though she’d have denied it had Samantha asked, with Gabi she admitted the truth. “Maybe just a little swoon,” she said. “I told him there couldn’t be any craziness between us, though.”

“Did you now?” Gabi said, clearly amused. “And why did you find it necessary to say such a thing?”

“Because there was a moment out there on the deck, just a moment, when there seemed to be something sizzling between us the way it used to.”

“And you’re totally opposed to any sizzle?”

“Totally,” she declared very firmly, as much for her own sake as to prove anything to her sister.

Gabi looked disbelieving just as Samantha had earlier. “Oh, honey, you are in a heap of trouble if you believe that.”

“I can’t want anything to happen between me and Boone,” Emily insisted.

“Saying it won’t make it so. Feelings as strong as what you two once shared don’t vanish just because time has passed or because they’re inconvenient.”

“But we moved on,” Emily protested. “Both of us.”

“And now you have another chance. Seems to me what would be really crazy is not taking advantage of that.”

Emily started to utter another more vehement protest, but Gabi cut her off.

“I’m just saying it’s something you should consider before you get all stubborn and dig in your heels. Boone’s an incredible man.”

Not even Emily was fool enough to try to deny that. “But he’s an incredible man who lives in North Carolina.”

“Gee, last time I checked we had phone lines, airports and even Wi-Fi,” Gabi said. “And from everything I hear, you have an established reputation in your field that might even follow you all the way to this mid-Atlantic wilderness outpost.”

Emily laughed. “Okay, point taken.”

But that didn’t mean she was going to open her heart...or risk breaking Boone’s for a second time.