“Extremely cool.” He should add his thoughts, but...
They went up the slight hill of Pelican Way to Port Fressa Avenue. “Have you ever been here? This is the Original Homestead,” Caleb said. “These houses are the ones Mac and his crew want to bulldoze.”
“No, I haven’t, but I should have. These are adorably shabby.” Emery started up one of the broken, uneven walkways to a Florida Cracker porch. “Yet there’s something romantic about them.”
“It’s hard to imagine families living in them, kids running up and down the street. But other than Sea Blue Way, this was the heart of our town.” He pointed to the house on the corner. “I’ve seen black-and-whites of that one. Proverbial picket fence, family with a dog gathered on the porch.”
“Now it looks sad. Even haunted. Do you really think they’re worth restoring?”
“I think everything is worth restoring.” Caleb glanced back at her, then continued down the lane, pausing by a couple of the houses, making mental notes. He’d have to walk the street in the light of day, choose one to refurbish first, then see what Simon could do for backing and money. “Mac will have to buy the houses on either side of this neighborhood to build his golf course. I’m not sure he can do it, but I bet he’s playing a long game.”
“Why hasn’t anyone done anything with them before now? How long have they been abandoned?”
“Lots of reasons. Red tape. Owners died, left it to family wholive somewhere else. Unpaid taxes, foreclosure, if there’s a loan. The city has to prove the property is abandoned, which requires a lot of due diligence. Some of the houses may have the taxes up to date, but no one pays for upkeep. Frankly, we’ve been so busy building up the West End, I don’t think anyone noticed the Org. Homestead.”
“Well, they care now, don’t they?” Emery said as they’d stopped in front of the last house on the street. Beyond was a dark wood. “She told me I run away.”
“Who told you—ah, Ava said you run away?”
“Yeah, after she confessed her panic over marrying Jamie, which sounds to me like nothing but freezing cold feet and varying expectations. I asked if she was running away, and she said she’d seen me do it enough times.”
Caleb started up the walkway to the porch. The sidewalk, the front walks, all of it would have to be redone to restore the Org. Homestead. “Is she right? Do you run away?”
“This morning I would have said no, but now I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I’m going to need evidence, Quinn. How’d you run away? If it wasn’t from a fiancé, Ava may not have a case.” He liked that she laughed.
“She may have reset the bar. No fiancé for me.”
“Then how’d you run away?”
“According to her? Sports, friends, college, my career. Living a block from theFree Voiceinstead of near them. Missing family events. When I moved home out of necessity, I didn’t really join in, according to her. She’s probably right. But thepièce de résistancewas accepting a job nine hundred miles away the night she got engaged.”
“Isn’t that life? You were seventeen, right? When your dad married her mom. A senior in high school. I was so busy mysenior year I was hardly ever home. Then I went to a college twelve hundred miles away before moving to the West Coast.”
“She admitted her reasoning wasn’t sound before clarifying I was more emotionally absent than present. She claims I never put my heart into the family. Iemotionallyran away, she said.”
“What do you say?” Caleb sat on the bottom step of the dilapidated porch and patted the space next to him.
“I never intended to stay on the outside, Caleb. But I didn’t want another mom. I didn’t want sisters. I didn’t want to share my dad.” Emery picked up a broken twig next to the step and started peeling away the dried bark. “Yet I wanted Dad happy. I understood he couldn’t build his life around me. Still, after Mom passed, I thought he’d drink craft beer with his fellow professors and have a weekly poker night, visiting me when I was living in Costa Rica for a year. Not create another family.”
“Did you live in Costa Rica?”
“It’s a metaphor, Ransom.”
“As for the family, you are part of it. Like it or not.”
“I know, I know, but I never felt like I was. Not deep down. And Ava felt it too.”
“I did a bit of pushing away with Cassidy. I wished she’d just go away and never come back. Stop making things hard and uncomfortable. I feel bad about that now. But she scared me. When love hurts, we disconnect. Find other things to occupy our hearts.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to commit to your ex? Is that why she told you to seek help?”
“Pretty astute observation, Quinn.” He could chuckle about it now, but that night ... “We never officially verbalized it, but yeah, she probably picked up on a few things.”
“From where I sit, you’re not afraid to love. Maybe she just wasn’t right for you.”
“Maybe.” Most definitely. “Now I get scared for Bentley. ThatCassidy is going to hurt him. She chose a man who doesn’t want kids, Emery. She dropped him at his uncle’s for the rest of the school year. What does that say to him? He tried to FaceTime her again this week. She never answered.”
