by Jenny Hale
Hallie gave him a hug, a big squeeze, an indescribable fondness for him bubbling inside her chest. Then she pulled back, an idea coming to her. “Know what I want you to do with me today?”
“What’s that?”
“I need you to go shopping.”
He stared at her. “Shopping?”
“Yes! For Coastal Comfort. I want to get ideas and bounce things off you. Then maybe you can help me contact some local merchants once I have a sense of what I want.”
His eagerness to help was clear, and she could tell that he enjoyed seeing her move forward with building this idea. “I’d love to.”
Mama peeked her head into the hallway, a scrambled egg-covered spatula in her hand. “Y’all grab Uncle Hank and come on in before this food gets cold. And don’t tell him but I made blueberry biscuits with Aunt Clara’s recipe.”
“Did I hear you say blueberry biscuits?” Uncle Hank said, coming up behind them, his face pensive. “I didn’t have to hear it though—the smell gave it away.” He closed his eyes and inhaled. They all waited on pins and needles to see if Mama’s gesture might be too much for him. “That, right there, is the smell of heaven.”
He looked up as if he could see right through the pearly gates. And then he smiled. It was as if a gray cloud had lifted. There was a buzz around the table. Robby was talking to Sydney about yesterday’s game. Uncle Hank pointed out the two biscuits he wanted, asking Mama if she’d used the buttermilk or the whole milk. Ben was dishing out the eggs, and suddenly, Hallie felt it: the feeling she’d had for all those years around this table at breakfast. This was Starlight Cottage. But there was one thing that had always been there that she just couldn’t shake: that empty chair. She wasn’t going to ruin the mood by bringing up Lewis now, but later she’d ask Uncle Hank to tell her the whole story.
* * *
“I can’t wait to show you my photos!” Hallie said when she rounded Ben’s jeep. She grabbed his arm as they headed toward the gallery. “Gavin cleared out an entire room for them. I’m so eager to see them all framed and ready to go.”
Ben opened the gallery door and allowed her to enter first.
There were a few people mulling around, chatting amongst themselves.
“Hey there.” Gavin greeted them as he walked up from the counter at the back of the old house-turned-shop.
“Hi! I stopped by to see the room you made for me,” she said, barely able to contain herself. She felt whole for the first time in a very long time. “I brought my friend Ben with me—you remember him, right?”
“Nice to see you again.” Ben offered a friendly handshake. “Hallie’s really excited to see what you’ve done with her work, if you can’t tell.” Gavin and Ben shared a moment of unity in their amusement.
“I can’t help it—it’s exciting! Once we see the photos, Ben’s going to help me shop for ideas. I plan to design a few pieces to go with the photographs to make a one-of-a-kind look, so people can buy a full design without having to hunt for things to match the photographs themselves. Then I’ll see if I can find some local merchants who are interested in pairing with me on the Coastal Comfort line.”
“You’re always one step ahead,” Gavin said, walking them down the short hallway to one of the rooms. “Have a look.” He gestured inside.
Outside the space, on an easel made of driftwood, was the Coastal Comfort logo. It was absolutely stunning. But what floored her was what she saw in the room. Hallie walked inside with Ben and she was overcome by the sight of her photographs. They were all matted and framed just like she and Gavin had talked about, and he’d hung them in color order from lightest to darkest and in clusters of complementing shades, exactly the way she’d wanted. Aunt Clara’s chair, the seashore, the lighthouse, the back porch with the paddle fans, the stone walk—they were all there on display. Hallie stood there in disbelief that she’d created this, because all the shots looked like works of art, like someone else had done them.
“You’ve done an amazing job with the display, Gavin,” Ben said, his eyes darting around as he took in all the pieces.
Gavin nodded in appreciation.
“I’m completely blown away by these.” Ben walked over to the stone path image and gazed at it. “Every one of them is going to sell. I can guarantee it.”
“He’s right,” Gavin agreed. “I finished the display this morning before we opened, and I’ve sold two already and had orders for prints.”
Hallie clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my gosh,” she said through her fingers. “I haven’t even gotten the home décor in here yet.”
“You can if you’d like, but you don’t need it,” Gavin said. “The photographs speak for themselves. People are looking! And the weekend is just getting started. But email me photos of some of your décor ideas and I’ll share them with the people who buy your pieces, until you can secure a partnership with a local craftsman.”
“Okay, I will.”
Hallie spent the next few minutes telling Ben about each of the photos; what she’d done with their perspective, and her editing techniques. Like he was so great at doing, he listened, smiling, clearly thrilled for her.
“You might need a bigger space,” he said once they were back outside. “Maybe you could have your own showroom.” He opened the jeep’s passenger door and Hallie climbed in.
“I’ve only sold two!” she said, before he shut her door and got in on his side.
“Two in about four hours. And Gavin said he’d also sold prints. Do you know how much he’s selling them for?”
“We chatted a bit about that last time we were together. He’s priced it all using the same pricing he does for his own.”
Ben nodded. “It’s definitely working. I’m glad he’s helping you.” He turned onto the main road that paralleled the beach. “You’ll want to keep a firm grip on sales and make sure you’re staying competitive but also getting the most that you can for your work. I’m sure Gavin has dealt with it all before, though.”
“It’s a lot to think about.”
Ben gave her a quick glance and a crooked grin. “It’s all good stuff. I’ve been there. You’ve got Gavin to consult, I’ll help you with what I can, and we’ll research the heck out of what we don’t know. But eventually, if this all takes off, you’re going to need people to help you manage things. You’ll need a salesperson, a receptionist—have you thought of consulting on decorating so that people will know where to put this furniture if they buy it?”
“I’ve thought of all of it—it’s so enormous that it scares me sometimes. I’m also envisioning a design team that will help me get it all off the ground, but I don’t know if I’ll have the means to start so grand. I didn’t believe that anything would come of it, and especially so quickly.”
“That’s just it, Hallie. You have to believe. Don’t let it scare you too much. Just breathe and follow your instincts.”
Hallie couldn’t help but think about that dream she’d had of Aunt Clara. Just jump in.
TWENTY-THREE
By the time Ben and Hallie got back to Starlight Cottage, she had a phone full of furniture images to use as a springboard for her designs, and ideas from some local merchants. She’d been madly emailing them to Gavin to pass along to any potential buyers. When she looked up from her phone, she noticed that Lewis was sitting alone in one of the rockers on the front porch.
“Who’s that?” Ben asked, bringing the jeep to a stop.
She sent a wide-eyed look over to Ben and answered, “Uncle Hank’s brother.” Hallie got out of the car and shut the door behind her. “Mind if I talk to him a minute?” she asked as Ben came around to her side.
“Not at all. I’ll check on Beau in the guesthouse. Come get me if you need me.”
“Okay.”
Lewis offered a friendly wave to Hallie as she approached. He seemed relaxed, tipping lightly back and then rocking forward as if he had all day to sit there, although his forehead glistened with perspiration from the thick humid
ity. For an instant, Hallie was filled with the hope that Lewis and Uncle Hank had put aside their differences, but recalling Uncle Hank’s face the night Lewis had come inside, she doubted that was the case.
“Hi Lewis,” Hallie said when she reached him.
“Hello, Miss Hallie. It’s so nice to see you again.” He pulled a folded handkerchief from his shirt pocket and dabbed at the dampness on his face.
“May I?” She gestured toward Aunt Clara’s chair, beside the one he was in.
“Of course.” Lewis returned the handkerchief to his pocket and put his hands on his knees, rocking again.
“Mind if I ask why you’re on the porch?” she ventured.
“Well, I ran into the police officer in town today. The one from the other night. He and I had a good chuckle over the mix-up with thinking I was some sort of prowler, and I bought him a coffee.” He stopped rocking. “While we were making conversation, he asked what my letter said. I didn’t understand. That was when he told me that your mother had mentioned that she had a letter for me from Clara, and they’d helped her track me down. They’d located me before I’d even shown up here.”
“That’s true,” Hallie said. “The check that Uncle Hank was trying to give you was your inheritance from Aunt Clara. She wanted you to have it.”
“I don’t want her money.” Emotion seemed to fill his throat, because he coughed as if he needed to clear it. “I just want her letter. I want to know what she has to tell me after all these years. I came to the cottage today to ask Hank for it, but he wouldn’t give it to me, so I told him I’d sit out here until he was ready to hand it over.”
“You realize that you could be out here a very long time?”
“Yep.” He started rocking again.
“I’ll see if I can talk to him.” Hallie got up. “I can’t guarantee I can change his mind, though.”
“I’ve got the rest of my days to sit here until he does.”
“Wish me luck.” Hallie opened the front door.
“Good luck,” he said. “You’re going to need it.”
Hallie walked into the house, past the living room. The piano fallboard sat open from this morning. She looked for Mama and Sydney but they weren’t there. They must have gone out somewhere. “Uncle Hank?” she called into the silence, peering into the kitchen, but the lights were off, the table empty.
“In here,” he called gruffly from Aunt Clara’s office.
When she got there the door was open and he was sitting in Aunt Clara’s office chair, running his hands along the edge of her desk, lost in contemplation. “What are you thinking about?” she asked gently, coming over to him and putting her hand on his shoulder.
“Do you know why your aunt gave Lewis a hundred thousand dollars?”
Hallie shook her head. “I don’t. That’s a lot of money.”
“Yes.” He lifted a framed picture of Aunt Clara and him off her desk and peered down at it. “When Clara wanted to expand her design company, we were young—still getting on our feet financially; we were considering buying a home together with our savings. She’d sat on the idea for quite a while, but it was eating her up and she finally told me. Clara and her business partner Sasha Morgan saw a real opportunity to expand abroad. However, it takes money to make money. She faced two possibilities: one, marry me and buy a house, or two, use all her savings to invest in her business.”
He set the frame back down, staring at it as if it held the rest of the story. Perhaps it did.
“Lewis had already made a fortune by his twenties in real estate up in New York, and he had offices both in Nashville and up north. He was just young enough with no obligations to still be dangerous with his investments. He and Clara used to have lively conversations about their businesses; she really enjoyed talking to him about it. He gave Clara ten thousand dollars to expand, and we were thrilled by his offer, but felt like we couldn’t take it. That was more than we could repay him back then, and we didn’t want to be indebted to family. He insisted, telling her that he knew what it was like to start from nothing. Sasha Morgan said she could offer her savings, and if they took Lewis’s gift they’d have enough to really get things going worldwide. Clara and I could buy our home and she could still build her company. Against my better judgment, Clara took Lewis’s money and promised him that one day she’d pay him back tenfold. But I never let her. Not after what he did.”
Hallie sat down on the office floor, her legs crossed, looking up at him. “What did he do that was so bad, Uncle Hank?”
“He started showing up wherever we were, to see how the business was going. Flashy. Dressed well, new cologne…” Uncle Hank cut his eyes at the hallway, and Hallie remembered that Lewis was probably still sitting out there. “It wasn’t the way my brother usually presented himself, or the way he usually behaved. I knew him when he was scared of the dark and didn’t give a hoot what kind of haircut he had.” Uncle Hank clenched his fists as if he had pain in his fingers. “He smiled a lot, laughed at Clara’s jokes, leaned in to her when she spoke. I didn’t like it, but Clara told me it was nothing. One day Clara showed me a bouquet of flowers he’d brought her. She told me that Lewis had asked her to go away with him. He’d told her he was in love with her.”
Hallie’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my God.”
“Clara was beside herself with guilt. She’d spent all those moments with him and taken his money, and she felt like she’d led him on somehow. She said she had to talk to him, but I told her not to. I wasn’t ever going to speak to him again, and she didn’t have to either.”
“Did she ever talk to him?”
Uncle Hank took in a long, steadying breath. “A few days later, she told me that she’d gone to see him to tell him how much she loved me. She tried to talk about their meeting with me, but I refused to listen. I didn’t want to know. I was still too angry about it to waste a minute of my time on him. I just asked her to tell me if she had any sort of closure, and she said she did, so we left it at that.”
Lewis didn’t seem like the sort of person Uncle Hank was describing at all. He lived in a modest home; his clothes, from what Hallie had seen, were average at best. He appeared kind and humble. “What if he’s changed?” she offered.
Uncle Hank’s eyes landed on Hallie. “Clara was the best thing that ever came into my life. She was the sun in my day. And he tried to steal that—it blindsided me. Lewis wanted to rob me of my greatest happiness for his own gain. To me, that’s unforgiveable. And if he’s changed, then great. But he won’t be a part of my life.”
Hallie sat up on her knees to get closer to his eye level. “Uncle Hank, Aunt Clara had things to say, but she knew she had limited time to say them. She left her own words for Lewis. You need to give him the letter. It’s between him and Aunt Clara—you don’t have to be a part of it if you don’t want to. But Aunt Clara has trusted you with this. You have to give him the message. For her.”
Uncle Hank drummed his fingers angrily on the desk, clearly considering her words.
“If he’s still on the front porch, I’ll take it out to him. You won’t even have to see him if you don’t want to.”
With a huff, Uncle Hank walked over to the safe and turned the dial several times to line up the combination. The door swung open and he snatched an envelope that sat in front of the rest of their family documents, leaving a second envelope that was underneath it in the safe—Hallie’s. He shut the door and spun the dial to lock it again. His lips pursed in disapproval, he held it out to her.
Hallie stood up to take it from him.
“My hope is that this will make him go away for good,” he said before leaving the room. “Ask him if he wants his check,” he called over his shoulder. “And then tell him not to come back.”
On her way through the house to the front porch, Hallie tried to reconcile what Uncle Hank was telling her about Lewis with what she’d observed of him. If he and Aunt Clara hadn’t come to some sort of understanding, she wouldn’t have saved an empty
seat for him at the table every holiday. Nor would she have left him the money she’d promised to pay him back or have written him a letter. There was a gaping hole in this story, and without Aunt Clara there to tell it, the only way Hallie could get answers was to ask Lewis. She was going to have to find out what had happened if she was ever going to convince Uncle Hank to include him in the family. It was obvious by Aunt Clara’s actions that that was exactly what she wanted. But finding a resolution between the two brothers seemed a long way off at this point.
She was relieved to find him still on the porch. He sat up, his back pulling away from the chair, when he saw what was in her hand.
“I’ll give you this,” she said, “but if you want it, I’m going to need some answers first.”
“Anything you’d like to know.”
Hallie lowered herself down into Aunt Clara’s chair.
“Did you try to get Aunt Clara to leave Uncle Hank and run off with you somewhere?”
He stopped rocking, his face sobering. “Yes. But that was a very long time ago.”
Hallie gripped the envelope with both hands. “Wanna tell me the story?”
“If you’d like.”
“I would.”
He looked out over the yard, pensive. “When Hank said he wanted to introduce me to his girlfriend, I had no idea how serious they were. When I met Clara, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on,” he said without changing his gaze. “She had a smile that could turn my stomach inside out. Hank told me that she wanted to buy her first house—she was looking for a very small fixer-upper. I found a few to show her, and the truth was that, despite my attempts to avoid it, I was smitten.” His face lit up with the memory. “I’d only just moved back to the Nashville area to help take care of our mother, who wasn’t well. I had found success very early in my career in New York and was already selling large estates. I was so good at real estate that I even surprised myself. A house the size Clara was looking for wasn’t a lot of money to me at that point in my career, but I didn’t care. I spent days searching for her; I toured areas myself to make sure they’d be safe. I wanted Clara to have the very best I could find her.