Beach Lane

She managed to pull off a reassuring smile that Jeff didn’t entirely buy. “Of course I know that,” she promised. “Now, get started. It’s going to take you all day to get through that list I gave you, and Mitzi Gaylord is coming in at five to sign the contract for the Brighton house.”

“On my way,” he said, still oddly reluctant to leave his daughter.

A few minutes later, though, he was in the bookstore when he overheard someone make a comment about Mack’s column not being in the paper. He realized he’d noticed the same thing this morning at breakfast, but hadn’t seen any reason to be alarmed by it.

“Well, I heard he was fired,” one of the women said. “That’s why he’s been hiding out the past few days. Who can blame him? His whole identity was wrapped up in that job. I think he was convinced it was his ticket to respectability—not that he needed one as far as I’m concerned. Still, after all he went through as a boy, this had to be a blow.”

“Fired? Are you sure?” a second woman asked. “The paper’s been making a big fuss about him for a long time now. Have you been up to Baltimore? Everywhere you look, his picture’s right there. It’s even on the sides of buses. He’s like some kind of sports columnist superstar.”

Jeff stepped out of the back room and looked around to identify the speakers. One of them was Ethel, whose nearby shop specialized in souvenirs and local gossip. He glanced around and caught Shanna’s eye, then beckoned her to the back.

“Did you hear them?” he asked.

She nodded. “But I have no idea if what they’re saying is true. I only know Mack’s been really upset. He wouldn’t tell Susie why. That’s why they fought on Thanksgiving.”

Jeff nodded, absorbing that news. “I see.”

“Please don’t tell her I told you about the fight,” Shanna pleaded. “She’d hate having you worry about her.”

“Yeah, Susie never wants anyone to worry,” he said. “Thanks, though, Shanna.”

After he’d finished checking to make sure the plumbing had been fixed, he was about to leave when he saw Will browsing through the nonfiction section. Jeff confronted him. If anyone would know what was going on, Will would.

“Have you got a minute?” he asked Will.

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Outside,” Jeff commanded, not wanting Ethel to overhear anything she could pass along to her customers.

When he and Will had walked to one of the benches along the bay and sat down, Jeff asked, “Has Mack been fired from his job? That’s the talk going around town this morning.”

Will’s uncomfortable expression was answer enough. Jeff sighed. “Then it’s true?”

Will nodded. “It happened the week before Thanksgiving. It’s really rocked him.”

“I can imagine,” Jeff said, feeling a certain amount of pity for him. Like everyone else in town, he know how much the job had meant to Mack. It had been his dream, and as Ethel had noted, it had given him the respect he’d always craved. Of anyone Jeff knew, no one had been more deserving of finding a little happiness.

“Has he told Susie?” he asked. “She hasn’t mentioned it to us.”

Will frowned. “I don’t think she knows. Can you leave it alone, Jeff? She should hear it from Mack.”

“I don’t know. Seems to me it’s something she deserves to know before everyone else in town starts blabbing about it. From what I overheard back at the bookstore, it won’t take long for the word to get back to her. Ethel has a pipeline that those TV tabloids would envy.”

“I agree with you. I’ll see if I can get Mack to talk to her today, but frankly, he hasn’t wanted to discuss it with anyone. Jake and I found out only after going over to his apartment and confronting him.”

“Tell him to do it today,” Jeff said. “Or I’ll see to it she finds out tomorrow.”

Will nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll do my best, but Mack’s not exactly listening to reason right now.”

“While Mack has my sympathy, he’s not the one I’m worried about,” Jeff said grimly.

And whatever it took, he was going to try to make sure Susie wasn’t the one who wound up getting hurt because Mack didn’t have the guts to own up to what was going on in his life. There was no shame in losing a job. But there was something wrong with not sharing that news with someone who supposedly mattered.

Susie had been living on her own in a small apartment above the shops on Main Street ever since she’d graduated from college and gone to work for her father. It was convenient to her job, which was just downstairs, and in the heart of downtown Chesapeake Shores, which was lively in the summer and quiet this time of year.

Though the apartment wasn’t spacious—just an open kitchen, living room and dining room area, plus a single bedroom and bath—it suited her, or at least it had until it filled up with her parents and her brothers, as it did on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

It wasn’t as if she’d been expecting them. They’d all turned up uninvited, armed with coffee and croissants from Sally’s, apparently staging some sort of intervention. She was still trying to get a fix on what had them in such an uproar.

“Okay, slow down,” she finally shouted, hoping to be heard over the commotion. “I can’t even think, much less understand a word any of you are saying.”

Thankfully, they all shut up and looked to her mother. Josephine O’Brien had been a high school and college athlete who, as a physical education teacher, had encouraged Susie’s love of sports and who’d coached her on the high school track team. She’d been the perfect mother for two energetic, athletic boys, and an even better one for a tomboy daughter. When she had something to say, they all listened.

“We’re worried about this ongoing infatuation you seem to have with Mack Franklin,” her mother began. “Especially right now.”

Susie frowned. “Why especially now?”

Rather than giving her a direct answer, Matthew said, “We all like the guy, but he has a lousy history with women, Suze. You know that.”

“Yeah, we thought that’s why you’d refused to date him,” Luke chimed in. “We all thought you’d made a smart decision.”

“Okay,” Susie said slowly. “All this is old news. Mack and I have been friends for a long time now. You’ve never objected to that. And I still don’t know what Mom meant when she said something about it being a bad time for our relationship to change.” She gave them a defiant look. “Not that I’m admitting it has.”

Her brothers exchanged a look as if deciding who should respond to that point.

It was Matthew who stepped in. “You let him tackle you on Thanksgiving,” he said as if it were a crime. “More than once.”

Susie frowned. “I didn’t exactly do it by choice.”

“But you didn’t even try to get away from him,” Luke countered. “No one has ever tackled you before. So, what? Did you want to roll around on the ground with him? That’s how it looked.”

Susie’s temper stirred. “Are you mad because I didn’t fight Mack off or because I didn’t score a touchdown? Since when is it all up to me to win a stupid family football game?”

“Well, we do count on you,” Matthew admitted. “None of us like losing.”

Luke scowled at him. “So not the point. Susie, you looked like you wanted to kiss him, right there in front of everybody.”

“If I hadn’t come over to help you up, I think you would have,” Matthew added. “Are you crazy? This has gone too far, Susie. Or it’s about to. That’s why we’re here, to stop you from doing something you’ll regret.”

“And you think I’d regret kissing Mack?” she inquired, her voice like ice. “Or is it sleeping with him that really worries you? Maybe falling in love with him? Well, I have news for you—it’s too late.” She avoided looking at either of her parents when she said it. She didn’t want to see any sign of shock on either of their faces, but she had to put a stop to this nonsense.

Matthew regarded her with alarm. “You’ve already slept with him? I’ll kill him. I swear I will. He should not be taking advantage of you. We’ve all told him that.”

Susie froze. “Excuse me? Who’s warned Mack to stay away from me?”

“We all have,” Matthew said. “Well, me and Luke, anyway. I think maybe Kevin and Connor have said something, too.”

Susie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “How dare you interfere in my life like that! If and when Mack and I decide we want to sleep together, believe me, it will be none of your business.”