“I checked the meter when I got back this morning. We are losing about two inches a week, far more than evaporation would account for. I’ve been keeping an eye on it for a while now. But the leak seems to be getting bigger, and I’m afraid it’s time to call in the experts.”
“What do you think this is going to cost?” Linda looked at him in shock.
“I can’t tell you that,” Martin told her. “It depends on the leak and what it will take to fix it.”
Linda stood staring at the pool, her heart sinking. This was all she needed right now to add more financial pressure on the hotel.
TOM
Tom turned the lock on the front door of Reilly’s Bakery and felt the small click settle the day at last.
It had been one of the longest days of his life, and not because anything had gone wrong. He had started at four in the morning at the bakery, getting the breads and pastries ready before he left for the hospital. The nursing interviews with George lasted until late morning. There was a full afternoon behind the counter with Lila as the festival drew every visitor in town and half the visitors from beyond the bay through the bakery doors. They’d run out of sourdough by three. They’d run out of cupcakes by five. They’d put the closed sign up at six on the dot because there was simply nothing left to sell.
And in twenty minutes, he was taking Lila to dinner.
Tom turned to find her at the back kitchen sink, scrubbing something off her sleeve.
“Oh, no,” Lila groaned.
“What is it?” Tom asked, walking over.
“I got jam on my blouse,” Lila explained, holding the sleeve up for him to see. A small dark blob of strawberry preserve sat on the pale cotton. “I’m so sorry about this. I just need ten minutes to run home and change.”
“That’s fine,” Tom told her. “We’ve got time. I booked the table for seven thirty.”
“Great,” Lila breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll be right back.”
Lila gave him a smile, grabbed her purse from under the counter, and slipped out the back door. Tom listened to her footsteps go up the small side path and out the side gate, which led to her apartment in the building next door. Tom glanced at what he was wearing and decided he could do with a freshening up. He turned and took the small staircase up to his own apartment above the bakery, two at a time.
He quickly showered, shaved, and pulled on the soft blue button-down Linda had bought him last Christmas, a pair of dark blue trousers, and slid the silver wristwatch his father had left him onto his left wrist. He looked at himself in the small mirror over the dresser, and he sprayed on some deodorant, brushed his teeth, and tried hard to ignore the excitement zinging through his veins at the thought of his date.
He was picking up his keys when his phone buzzed with a message from Lila.
I’m on my way back. I’ll be there in a few minutes.
Tom smiled. He grabbed his keys and his wallet, then went back downstairs to wait for Lila.
He stepped out onto the front step of the bakery just in time to see her round the corner from her building. She had changedinto a soft cream blouse with small dark buttons down the front and a long pale skirt that brushed her ankles. Her hair was loose around her shoulders. She’d taken the small silver hoop earrings out and put pearl studs in instead. She walked toward him in the slow gold of the early evening light, and Tom forgot, for a moment, what he had been about to say.
“I’m sorry I had to rush off like that,” Lila said, stopping and looking at him. “Oh, you changed, too.”
“Yes, I thought I may as well freshen up while I waited,” Tom admitted. He smiled. “Shall we?” He said and stepped aside for her to walk toward his truck.
Tom opened the passenger door of his truck for her. She climbed up and settled into the seat as Tom climbed into the driver’s side.
“Where are we going?” Lila asked as he started the engine. “I’ve been meaning to ask you the whole day.”
“The Driftwood,” Tom answered. “Down at the marina.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard that’s a great restaurant,” Lila said. “A lot of the customers talk about it.”
“Yes, I haven’t eaten there myself,” Tom admitted. “But, it comes highly recommended.”
He drove them along Bay View Drive in the easy gold of the early summer evening. The bay glittered to their right, soft pink at the horizon line where the sun was beginning its slow tilt down. The festival was still going on the far side, the distant sound of the bluegrass band carrying faintly across the water. Lila had her window cracked. The warm Gulf air came in and stirred the small curls of her hair against her temple.
Tom glanced over at her.
She was looking down at the leather-bound binder in her lap, the one she had brought with her tonight.
