by Rachel Magee
“I can’t come to the park. I have to work this afternoon.”
Ever since the car accident, Braxton had made a commitment to stay home to raise Alice. It was unfair enough that she’d lost one parent; she deserved to have the other one around as much as possible. However, being with her every minute of every day was almost impossible.
Of course, he’d given up golf, which had occupied so much of his time for the majority of his life. He hadn’t even touched a golf club since the night he got the life-changing phone call. But there were still other commitments he was responsible for, like his part-time career as a real estate broker. And Henry.
Yes, what he had to do was valid and important, but it didn’t take away the guilt of leaving his little girl when she looked at him with those baby blue eyes. “But your friends will be at the park. And I’ll be home in time for dinner.” He handed the wiggly child over to his amazing nanny, Lena.
“Right now, though, you have to take a nap. And I have to take Henry to the doctor.”
Henry had been his number one fan for decades. He was the one who had recruited him with a full college scholarship. When Braxton ventured into being a professional golfer, Henry left his job at the university to go on the PGA tour with him. Then when Jade died and Braxton felt like his life was falling apart, Henry had made it his full-time job to pick up the pieces and help Braxton put them back together.
Now that Henry needed help, it was Braxton’s turn to stand in the gap.
Fighting back the urge to stay just one more hour with Alice, he ruffled her hair one last time and watched her sleepy eyes droop as Lena carried her up the stairs. As soon as they were out of sight, he headed out the front door.
It was a beautiful day on the island. The sun was warm, but the breeze blowing off the Atlantic kept the temperature comfortable. Maybe, if Henry was having a good day, he’d bring him back here after the doctor’s appointment. A walk on the beach would be good for him. The soothing sounds of the ocean always relaxed him. Although, the faint banging noise might be a problem. Anything out of the ordinary seemed to set him on edge lately.
Braxton paused on the front porch to search for the source of the racket. It didn’t take him long to trace the sounds to the house next door. Millie’s house.
They both had large lots, so her house was a ways away, but he could still make out her figure on top of her roof. There was a box next to her and she appeared to be hammering something. Was she putting new tiles on the roof? By herself?
As a professional athlete, he’d seen determination before. He knew what it was like to get up before everyone else and push past all the pain to achieve his goal. But there was something about her determination and fiery stubbornness that impressed him.
He had a few minutes to spare. Maybe he should stop by her house and see what she was up to. Besides, he needed to see if she’d found the operating license he’d asked for the other day.
Braxton headed next door in his car. The broken concrete crunched under the tires as he drove around the circle and came to a stop next to the old fountain before climbing out.
Banging drifted down from the roof, but there was no sign of how she’d gotten up there. He made his way over the patchy grass around the side of the house, looking for the ladder she’d used. He had to go all the way to the back of the house before he found it.
There, on the uneven, rocky ground was a very tall and very wobbly-looking ladder leaning against the side of the house with her curly-haired dog lying in the shade nearby.
“Hey, Bear.” The dog hopped up when he saw Braxton and trotted over with his tail wagging. “You let her climb up that?”
It was possible the ladder would have been tall enough to reach all the way to the roof if it had been positioned in the courtyard, or even at the front of the house, but the ground at the back of the house was lower than any other point, making the wall of the house even longer. It left the ladder short, stopping about six inches below the roofline.
Had Millie been standing on it to hang Christmas lights or paint the trim, this setup could have worked. It would’ve been unsafe and he wouldn’t have approved, but it could’ve worked. As it was, he had no idea how she’d managed to get herself from the top of the ladder to the top of the roof without falling.
“How does she plan to get down?” he asked Bear, who whined in response. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out to her. “Hello? Millie?”
Could she even hear him over all the hammering?
Braxton checked his watch again. Now that he’d seen her hazardous setup, he couldn’t leave without making sure she was safe.
“I guess I have to go up,” he told Bear, although he had no desire to climb that haphazard contraption. He gave it a jiggle, making sure it was firmly planted on the ground, then climbed the bottom two rungs to check the stability. Was he satisfied with the results? Absolutely not. But since he had no choice, he hesitantly moved up the death trap toward the edge of the roof.
“Millie?” he called again. “You up here?”
He made it almost to where his hands could touch the roof, about four rungs from the top, when her head appeared over the pitch.
“Hey. What are you doing here?” She had the same peppy tone and optimistic grin she always had and their effect swept over him like a refreshing ocean breeze, calming some of his apprehension.
“I came to ask you the same question.”
Millie held up a hammer and wiped the sweat from her forehead on the back of her arm. “Fixing the roof.”
“Do you know how to do that?” Braxton was impressed. He didn’t know how to fix a roof. He wasn’t sure he’d even be motivated to learn how to do it. But here she was, hammering away and looking content about it.
“Not as well as I probably should. But the video didn’t seem overly complicated.”
He strained to see past her, looking for someone who might be helping her. “Are you by yourself up there?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I tried to convince Bear to come up here with me, but he’s got this thing about heights. And ladders.” A joking glint flashed in her eyes.
The sight of it caused his heart to do a little shimmy.
“I don’t blame him.” Braxton glanced down at the dog sitting at the foot of the ladder, reminding him just how high they were. A fresh wave of fear rolled through him. “Although, in all seriousness, you shouldn’t be up here by yourself.”
“Is roof repair like swimming? Do I need to wait twenty minutes after eating, too?”
“I heard the twenty-minute rule was an old wives’ tale, but it never hurts to be on the safe side.”
“Interesting tip. I’ll keep it in mind.” She waved her hammer at the roof behind her. “If that’s all, I gotta get back. These tiles aren’t going to hammer themselves.”
“Actually,” he called, stopping her in mid-crawl. “I hate to do this, but now that I’ve seen your setup, I can’t in good conscience let you stay on the roof by yourself.” He pulled his mouth into the most sympathetic face he could muster and threw in a slight shoulder shrug for good measure.
Her eyes narrowed. “For real? You’re making me get off my own roof?” There was an edge of annoyance in her voice that might have concerned him if he wasn’t worried about one of them plummeting to their death.
“Just until you have someone else here. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” The truth that so freely rolled off his tongue surprised him. It was natural to be that concerned about his new neighbor, wasn’t it? He added on a bit of sarcastic humor, just to prove the point to himself. “We finally got someone to take care of this lot. We’d hate to lose that too soon.”
She studied him for a second and he wondered what was going through that mind of hers. “Fine. It’s probably time I hydrate anyway.” She slid her hammer into her belt loop with a little more force than he
thought necessary.
Braxton climbed down a couple of rungs to give her space. She rolled onto her stomach and inched down until her legs dangled off the side, her feet reaching for the top rung.
“You’re still about a foot away. Keep coming.”
She edged down a bit more, her feet still well above the ladder she was blindly scrabbling for. His pulse started to race.
“Keep coming.”
She pointed her toes, clearly reaching for the ladder she couldn’t seem to find. Finally, her feet stopped moving and she hung there for a second. “I could, uh, use a little help.”
“I got ya.” He reached up and cupped his hand around the heel of her tennis shoe, guiding her foot to the first rung. She inched farther down, her stomach still pressed against the roof, and secured her second foot on the same rung. With one hand holding on to the side of the ladder, he reached up and gently pressed the other against Millie’s back to give her support until she was able to grab the sides of the ladder herself.
The connection of their touch buzzed through him, which caught him off guard. He would’ve pulled his hand away, but since he was more concerned about her safety, he left it in place until she was securely on the ladder.
Once they got to the ground, she dusted her hands on her shorts and looked anywhere but at him. “Well, thanks for that.”
“My pleasure. But, in all seriousness, that was incredibly dangerous. Promise me you won’t climb onto the roof from a ladder that’s too short again.”
“Sure thing.” She gave him a salute. “Next time, I’ll prop the ladder up on rocks before I start.” A sly smile pulled at the corners of her mouth and she waggled her eyebrows before she turned and started around the side of her house with Bear following along by her side.
He fought back a smile and jogged to catch up with her. “Just make sure you teach Bear how to call 911.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Not a bad idea. I think that’s the first good tip you’ve had since we moved in.” They reached the front of her house and she jerked her thumb at the front door. “We’re headed inside to rehydrate, so thanks for dropping by.” She turned and trotted up the first few steps.
“Actually, I swung by to ask about the operating license. Were you able to find it?”
She paused mid-step, looking like a student who forgot their homework.
“Right. About that, I’m still looking for the key. If I don’t find it tonight, I’ll call a locksmith to open the drawer tomorrow.”
“So I can drop by to get it tomorrow? Say around five o’clock?”
“You know what, why don’t I drop it off at your place as soon as I rescue it from Fort Knox.”
“Great. Thank you.” He nodded once and walked around to open his driver’s side door. As he did, he caught sight of her trash cans. “Oh, by the way, trash cans have to be brought in by sundown of trash day. It’s kind of a thing here.”
He always felt the need to warn new residents about that since it was the first and only violation letter he’d received. There were a lot of things he loved about living in Oceanside Estates, but the one thing he still didn’t understand was their obsession with trash cans.
With her back still to him, she held her hand over her head in a thumbs-up.
“I’ll add it to the list.”
…
Later that night, Millie let out a tired sigh as she carried the box of roof tiles inside and spied the trash cans still sitting next to the curb under the lit streetlight. With all the other problems she had to hurdle to reopen Seascape, Braxton and his HOA posse had the audacity to split hairs over her trash cans? Did they not think her impossible dream was impossible enough?
To be fair, Millie didn’t realize she was signing up for an impossible dream when she quit her job, loaded her car, and moved to Summer Island to start a new life. Yes, she thought it’d be hard. Yes, she was aware it would require some work. But she never anticipated this, which probably was just as well. If she’d known what she was signing up for, there’s a good chance she would’ve chickened out.
Instead, she went all in, and since living her impossible dream was the only choice she had, that’s what she was doing, one how-to video at a time. At least she could now add roof repair to her list of unique skills and qualifications.
It had taken all day, but she’d finished. Of course, someday she would need to invest in a whole new roof, but her repair job on the damaged parts should fix the leaking problem for now.
She carried the box of the leftover roofing tiles to the storage closet in the laundry room and stood on her toes to place it on the top shelf with the optimistic assumption she wouldn’t need it again for a while. She still had to get on the roof with a water hose to make sure the leaks were all fixed, but that was a two-man job and at the moment she was here all by herself.
As much as she hated to admit it, Braxton was right. She shouldn’t be on the roof without anyone else around. Luckily, during the day, Gus and his crew were constantly coming and going as they worked on their part of the construction project. They made the perfect safety buddies. Once they had gotten back from their lunch break, she made it her new habit to tell them what she was working on, and someone came out and checked on her regularly. Plus, it turned out that Gus had a ladder that was a much better fit for her tall roof than the antique she’d found in the garage.
But the sun had set a while ago, and all of the crew had gone home to their own families, leaving Millie alone in the big old house with the one task that had given her more anxiety than playing on the roof—finding the key to Aunt Mildred’s desk.
What if she couldn’t find it? What if she found the key but the document wasn’t in the locked drawer? Or, worse yet, what if the document backed the argument of the HOA?
Her blood pressure skyrocketed, making her temples beat to the rhythm of her racing heart as she stood in the office doorway, clutching her hot tea between her hands.
“It has to be here somewhere,” she said to Bear and stepped over the threshold. “We just have to think like Aunt Mildred.”
Aunt Mildred was the closest thing to a maternal figure Millie had ever had. Every year, all through elementary and middle school, she and her father would fly down to Summer Island the first week of summer to stay at Seascape. They’d spend the week together playing on the beach and exploring nature. Then her dad would go back to work, while Millie stayed and helped her aunt around the inn until he came back to get her just before school started. Summer was always her favorite time of the year.
Of course as she got older, her personal life got busier and around the time she started high school, summer jobs and friends replaced the seasonal escape. The excuse had been that she’d come next time. Only, next time never came.
Sure, she could blame it on circumstances. Her dad got sick. Balancing taking care of him and her full college workload took every bit of her time. After he died, she was dealing with grief and drowning in medical bills and student loans. As soon as she got her head above water, she was stuck in the corporate world chasing promotions she couldn’t catch and falling in love with the wrong men.
But the bottom line was she hadn’t made time to come check on Aunt Mildred. She’d sent Christmas cards and Mother’s Day cards claiming she’d plan a trip soon until time had run out.
Millie dropped into the creaky wooden chair in front of the desk and studied her favorite picture on the wall—the one of her, her great-aunt, and her father. Bear followed and lay down on the floor at her feet, picking up the bone he’d left in here.
“What I wouldn’t give to spend one more summer here with both of them.” Loneliness ached inside her. But at least she was here now. Being in this place where she’d made some of her favorite memories with two of the most important people in her life made her feel closer to them.
“That’s our goal.” She motioned to the pic
ture on the wall, focusing on her twelve-year-old self’s genuine, carefree smile. “We want to be part of the legacy that helps people create happy memories with the ones they love. That’s going to make all this work worth it.”
The tower of old papers teetering below the picture caught her eye. At close to three feet tall, Millie was a little amazed it could stand without falling over. Were the cobwebs holding it in place? She made the mistake of checking out the stacks of papers next to it, which led to following the mess all around the room. A decent amount of the floor space along with every single surface was covered with stacks of yellowing papers and worn file folders.
“Let’s hope we find the key before we have to start digging through all of that.” Cleaning the grout on the tile floors that stretched across all four thousand square feet of the downstairs area seemed less overwhelming.
Bear lifted his head and cocked a shaggy eyebrow before he settled his head back on his paws. Millie chuckled and bent down to rub the dog’s head. “My thoughts exactly, boy.”
She decided to comb through each one of the drawers again, checking every nook and cranny. When that came up short, she moved to the first six-foot metal filing cabinet. The key wasn’t in any of the baskets on top, and the first two drawers that she opened were so full of papers that she couldn’t imagine putting the key in there.
Frustrated, she slammed the drawer shut and turned to the picture of her aunt with her and her dad. “Any sort of hint would be nice. The inn is kind of on the line, here.”
And then a thought came to her.
If it was her favorite picture, what if it was…
Her heart pounded as she took two slow steps toward it. Drawing in a deep breath, she carefully removed it from the wall.
There, on the nail that held the frame, hung a key.
Millie almost laughed at the sight. Of course her aunt would hide the key behind the people she trusted the most in the world, which simultaneously filled her with joy and regret. She grabbed the key and rehung the picture on the wall, pausing to touch the image of her aunt.