6
Brook
Have you ever had a night so perfect you were sure you were dreaming? I feel like Baby in that old movie, falling in love on summer vacation. We started packing the car so we can go home tomorrow, but I don’t want to. I want to stay here forever. I can’t believe he told me he loves me! -W
“Okay,so here’s a question for you….” Dane handed me a bottle of water. It was a gorgeous night, the last we’d have before the grand opening. I’d suggested we head into town for the night, but Dane insisted I take it easy.
I’d gotten so used to working no matter how I felt that it was hard for me to sit back and watch him do the heavy lifting. Okay, so not as hard as it would have been if he hadn’t been so damn sexy and sweet, but still, I felt like I wasn’t doing anything to earn a paycheck. But Dane insisted, so I listened.
“What’s that?” I asked when he didn’t finish his thought. That happened frequently; he’d start to say something, and then the thought would fly out of his head, off to find its friends. Yet another trait that would be annoying if it was anyone other than Dane. Right now, he was sitting across the table from me with his feet propped on the same chair as the ankle I was icing. Every once in a while, our feet would touch, and I swore a zing of electricity shot through me. Which was stupid. It was incidental contact, nothing more. And I wouldn’t dare tell him how it made me feel because I still hadn’t figured out a way to apologize for my behavior almost a week earlier.
“So, it’s called Bird Island. Where in the hell are the birds?” He swept his hands through the air as evidence of the lack of a flock worthy of naming an entire island after the birds. “And furthermore, why in the hell is this place called the Bird Island Inn if it’s not on Bird Island?”
“That’s an easy one,” I told him, leaning forward to prop my chin on my hands. While I wouldn’t explain that I knew the answer because I’d heard his grandparents bickering about the ridiculous name of the place, his grandfather’s logic was sound. “When your grandfather bought this place, he wanted a name that would be recognizable. By that point, the Kindred Spirits Mailbox was common knowledge, and everyone knew it was on Bird Island. Since this is the closest commercial property to the island, he decided to use the name.”
Dane sat back in his chair, watching me drink my water. It was a little creepy, but I got the sense he was in one of his thinking moods. He’d done that a lot this week, along with asking questions. It had broken my heart when he shared a little bit of what he and James had talked about over breakfast. I tried to imagine life without my grandpa in it and couldn’t. He’d always been my stability, much as Dane’s dad seemed to be to him.
“What was he like?” Dane finally asked, his voice soft and vulnerable. I thought for a moment, trying to decide how much to tell him, honored that I had this information to share with him.
“Your grandpa was really cool,” I told him. He scoffed and I shook my head. “No, seriously. Don’t take this personally, but I always wondered why he was with your grandma. She was stuffy and stuck-up. She hated it when he’d walk the beach in the mornings, barefoot with this ratty, floppy hat protecting his bald head. There’s a jar of shells in the sitting room that was his personal collection. Every day, he’d add a new one. From time to time, we’d have to get a bigger container.
“And he was a hard worker. I was surprised he hired me, because I’d been in here at least a dozen times asking for work.”
“Why not just go someplace else?” he asked. It was a logical question without a good answer. He’d think I was nuts if I told him I’d been drawn to this building even before his family bought the place. Back then it sat empty and I used to sneak in through a boarded-up window. It was quiet, which home never was for me.
There was something special about this building, the island, everything. It’d be foolish to say, but part of me felt like I’d been led here by some greater power in the universe. It tethered me here, even when I got restless and said I wanted to leave someday.
“You don’t have to answer that,” he said, breaking my train of thought.
My cheeks flushed as I realized I was the one with the wandering mind now.
“Did you like working for them?”
Another tricky question. “Him, yes,” I responded. “Your grandmother, not so much. Nothing was ever good enough for her. She wanted to attract high-end clientele if she was going to be stuck here, but every time he suggested they invest in renovations, she shot him down. And she didn’t care who was around to hear it. Sometimes I wondered if she got off on the power trip, proving to anyone in earshot that she held the ultimate control.”
“Is that why James has put all this work into the place over the winter?” Damn. Why couldn’t we get back to a lighter topic? Every question Dane asked had a complex answer.
“I definitely think that’s part of it.”
“But?”
I shook my head, not wanting to share my suspicions. James had been acting strange for a while now, and I didn’t think it was just because Phillip passed away. Last fall, I noticed a dark SUV in the parking lot a few times, and every time they drove away, James walked back inside in a foul mood. Something was going on there.
“Never mind.”
Dane leaned forward and took my hand. Realizing what he’d done, he started to pull away, so I gripped his fingers tighter. I liked the way I felt when he touched me. Loved the way he looked at me. Wished like hell there wasn’t a countdown timer ticking away until he left, because Dane was a good man.
“If there’s something I need to know about James, tell me,” he pleaded. “My dad’s supposed to be coming down here next month, and if James is mixed up in something illegal, I’ll have Dad move in with me instead.”
“I don’t think it’s anything like drugs if that’s what you’re hinting at,” I told him, refusing to go any further. Grandpa always scolded my mom and her friends for gossiping, even once they were grown, and I went out of my way to avoid it.
Our conversation faded, and we sat watching the tide creep up the beach with every set of waves. The sound of a girl shrieking in the distance followed by rich laughter made me smile. I tipped my head back and closed my eyes, wishing I felt up to a walk across the island tonight because the weather was perfect for it.
When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t believe what sat on the table. A green notebook with the edges curled up from use. “Where’d you get this?”
Dane’s cheeks turned pink, the corner of his mouth lifting upward in a shy smile. “I figured you hadn’t been out to the mailbox since the night we were there. Thought you might miss your reading time.”
“So you made a four-mile round-trip for me?” Maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked, because that was the type of guy Dane was, but no one had ever gone out of their way like this for me. I didn’t have a lot of dating experience, but I’d never even been able to get any of my boyfriends to walk out there with me. They all thought it was a redneck tourist trap, not worth wasting hours of their time. But Dane, who I’d treated like crap last Saturday morning, had walked out there and brought back a book for me to read without me even asking.
