Summer on Moonlight Bay

by Hope Ramsay

  The living room furniture was mostly big and heavy and upholstered in brown leather. The walls were white, and he hadn’t put up any artwork. The whole vibe was deeply masculine and still kind of temporary. As if Chaplain St. Pierre hadn’t quite settled in yet or adjusted to his civilian life.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” the chaplain asked.

  “Um, I could use a beer if you got one.”

  He nodded and headed into the kitchen. She followed him and took a seat at his kitchen table. He pulled a couple of Yuenglings from the fridge and sat down facing her.

  “So why’d you leave the navy?” he asked, getting to the point quick, the way he usually did. “I was surprised when you called me the other day. I always figured you for a lifer.”

  She took a pull at the long-necked bottle, the beer cold and sharp in her mouth. She was hungry. When had she last eaten? Hours and hours ago. Breakfast. “It was time,” she said, putting the beer down on the table and playing with the condensation on the bottle’s surface. The guilt of the last eight months weighed her down.

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment, probably because he knew she’d just lied to him. She’d always insisted that she was a lifer. She’d had fifteen years of service and only five more to go in order to get full retirement benefits. The navy had been her life and her home and her everything. Her nomadic childhood had made her perfect for the life of a chief petty officer.

  Yeah, she should have realized that Chaplain St. Pierre would see right through her BS. But she wasn’t ready to tell him the truth. So she said nothing, and the silence damned her.

  After an interminable moment, he blew out a long breath and said, “So, you’re here. Where are you staying?”

  She looked up into the chaplain’s kind face, her heart suddenly thumping in her chest. She didn’t say a word.

  One of his eyebrows reached for his close-cropped hairline. “You don’t have a place to stay, do you?”

  She shook her head. “I guess I was thinking about crashing on your sofa. I know that was impossible back when we were both navy. You being an officer and me being a non-com, but—”

  “It’s still a bad idea.”

  “Why?”

  His mouth twitched. “I told you over the phone the other day that being a pastor is different from being a chaplain. I have a church now, filled with parishioners who think it’s their job to keep an eye on me. The fact that I’m unmarried seems to be a big issue for many of them, particularly the altar guild. If I let a single female crash on my couch, there would be lots of rumors. And, trust me, gossip moves through Magnolia Harbor just as fast as on the Nimitz. If you want to settle down here, crashing on my couch would be the very worst way to start.

  “And in addition, it’s not as if I can just hire you. I have to run a decision like that through the church board. So…” He let his voice trail off.

  So they might object if she was sleeping at the rectory. He didn’t say the words but he didn’t need to.

  She was an idiot. She should have known this. She looked down at her beer bottle, cupping it in her hands. “So you think you can get me a job?” she asked.

  He reached over and gave her arm a squeeze. “Radar, I will move heaven and earth to get you a job. I can’t think of anyone better to help me negotiate the ins and outs of dealing with a church. You were always so incredibly good at figuring people out. When you were supporting my ministry, I always felt as if I knew what people needed. You know, all the stuff they need but don’t ever ask for.” He gave her a sober look, as if he wanted to know what she needed but was afraid to ask for.

  But she didn’t dare tell him the truth. Not if he was ready to get her the job she needed to move forward in her life. That job was everything. And really, working in this little town would be a snap compared to what she had to deal with in the navy. People here weren’t under fire, they didn’t get deployed for months at a time, and they didn’t have the same marital or economic pressures.

  It would be safe here.

  But staying here wouldn’t be possible if she crashed on his couch.

  “Okay, I can find a place to stay; it’s no problem,” she said, wondering if she could talk her way into sleeping on the floor at the animal hospital.

  Which suddenly seemed like a really good idea. She could keep an eye on the puppy and get an early start fixing the mess in the storeroom.

  “Are you sure? I mean, I can find you a place. I’m friends with the innkeeper who lives across the street.”

  Wait, what was that about? There was something in the way he said “friends” that set her intuition abuzz. Who was this innkeeper, anyway? She might have let her curiosity run away with her, but she decided it would be best not to press. Or to take any favors from him.

  All she wanted was a job.

  “No, it’s really okay. I’m sure I can find a place to stay in a tourist town, sir.”

  “I don’t know. It gets pretty crowded here in June,” he said. “And please don’t call me ‘sir.’ Micah will do.”

  “Yes…” She stifled the “sir.”

  “Okay,” he said. “If you’re sure you’re okay for the night. I’ll need to talk to a few members of the church board tomorrow. Why don’t we meet for lunch at Rafferty’s tomorrow at one o’clock? By then I should have an idea if this is even possible.”

  Chapter Three

  Well, you’ve certainly made a mess of things,” Granny said, eyeing the storeroom where the once-neatly-stacked boxes were now scattered.

  “I suppose you’re about to ask me to clean it up, huh?” Noah asked.

  “Well, that would be nice, but after watching you make this mess, I don’t have a lot of faith in your organizational skills.” She said this with a smile.

  In fact, she looked a bit like the cat who’d swallowed the canary. And why not? She had him exactly where she wanted him, with a patient in the kennel room and no staff to help him monitor the animal. He wasn’t merely the on-call doc, he was the on-call vet tech as well. He’d have to spend the night here because he didn’t believe in leaving sick animals unattended.

  And he’d most likely have to extend his stay in Magnolia Harbor until the dog recovered some. Momma would love that. She might even believe she could convince him to make this arrangement permanent.

  Yeah, the jaws of the trap were poised to spring closed. But Noah had no intention of getting trapped. So he looked Granny right in the eye and asked, “Is the board of directors doing anything to find a replacement vet?”

  “Of course we are. But it’s not that easy, you know. It’s kind of isolated out here.”

  He massaged the bridge of his nose where a tension headache was beginning to throb. The urge to step in and get the clinic set up was almost overpowering. But he was going to resist. He’d do the surgery tomorrow, and then he’d ship the dog off to one of the rescue societies on the mainland. That was it.

  Granny had other ideas, obviously, because she picked up her big purse and dug around its cavernous insides a few moments before coming up with a set of keys. “Well, I expect you’ll need to keep an eye on your patient. So you’ll need these. I’d like to help with the storeroom, but I’ve got to scoot. Your grandfather will wonder what happened to me. And he’ll claim I’m trying to starve him by being home late.” She gave Noah’s shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks for coming in, Noah. That puppy needs you.”

  He said nothing as she crossed the reception area toward the door. Clearly she’d won this skirmish, and it was just like her to need to have the absolute last word.

  She stopped just before the door and looked at him over her shoulder. “You know, we should name him. What do you think? How about Prince?” she said.

  “Prince?” A shiver ran down Noah’s back, raising goose flesh along his arms. Momma always said that a shiver like that only happened when someone in the future walked over your grave. In this case, it might be someone walking over that patch of ground in Daddy’s back yard where
Noah had buried Duke. Noah had been just thirteen years old, but he’d dug the grave himself.

  “We’re not naming that puppy,” he said.

  Granny cocked her head. “No?”

  “No.”

  She waved. “We’ll see.” And then she turned and breezed out the front door.

  Noah headed back to the kennel to check on the dog. The pain meds had kicked in, and the puppy was sleeping. He was cute, like Duke had been as a puppy. Duke, who had slept in Noah’s bed. Duke, who had patiently listened to Noah every night as he whispered out his pain. Duke, who had died under the wheels of Daddy’s truck.

  He ground his teeth.

  “You’re going to be okay,” he said aloud to the sleeping dog.

  He headed into the storage room to survey the damage he’d done. Cleaning up the mess was going to be a long, tedious job. Which he was not going to do, no matter how much the mess bugged him.

  But he would still have to get things set up for tomorrow’s surgery. So he gathered up some supplies and headed into the OR. He’d just started disinfecting the place when someone knocked on the door.

  Great. Just great. He’d have a whole kennel full of patients before the evening was over. He headed to the reception room, ready to tell whoever was out there that the clinic was closed.

  But instead of another patient, Noah found Ethan, his face pressed up against the glass door as if he was checking the place out for bad guys. His younger brother was a few inches shorter than Noah and much beefier. His Magnolia Harbor Police Department uniform shirt gapped a little around his midsection. Ethan needed to go on a diet, or maybe get some exercise. He was starting to develop a gut.

  Just like Daddy.

  Noah opened the door. “It’s just me in here if you’re wondering why the light’s on. Granny left a few minutes ago.”

  “Oh, okay. I saw the light but I didn’t see Granny’s car.” Ethan stepped across the threshold and studied the reception area, which featured a wall mural of a dog and cat sleeping together. “Cute,” Ethan said with his lopsided grin.

  “Yeah, I’m sure Granny picked it out,” Noah said. “And things are fine here. Granny left a little while ago. She was headed back home.”

  “Good to know, because Granddaddy called in. He was worried.”

  “She stayed late. We had an emergency.”

  “So,” Ethan said, leaning up against the high reception desk, “does this mean you’re staying?”

  “No. I’m still planning to take Momma back to Charleston where I can look after her. And I thought Abby might like a break in Charleston before she heads up to Columbia for her first semester at USC.”

  Ethan shook his head. “Good luck with that. I don’t think Momma or Abby’s ready to leave.”

  “Momma’s not. But Abby is looking forward to college.”

  “Maybe. But I think she’s got a boyfriend.”

  “Really?” This was news.

  “I’ve seen Grant Ackerman sniffing after her, and he’s got to be at least ten years older than she is. I’ve seen her looking back at him.”

  “Who the hell is Grant Ackerman?”

  “He’s a CPA in town. Has an office on Tulip Street. He’s got to be at least thirty-five. I mean he’s got a head of gray hair.”

  “What’s he want with Abby?”

  “I don’t rightly know. And I don’t know why she’s been flirting with him down at Rafferty’s either, except she flirts with everyone. I’m concerned.”

  “Maybe it’s a good thing I plan to move her to Charleston.”

  “This is Abby we’re talking about. She’s not going to go easy. She loves her job at Rafferty’s. Daddy says someone should slap a chastity belt on her.”

  “Daddy would,” Noah said through clenched teeth.

  He hated it when Ethan quoted their father. In Noah’s opinion, Daddy was an a-hole. And he’d just proved the point if he thought Abby should be locked up like a medieval virgin. Abby was almost twenty years old. She was smart and hardworking. She needed the freedom to become her own person, and sometimes Noah felt like he was the only one in the family ready to let her grow up.

  On the other hand, he didn’t like the idea of some old guy taking advantage of her. Damn. There was a hard line between protecting his little sister from some jerk and letting her learn from her mistakes.

  He faced his brother head on. “She’s growing up, Ethan. Daddy needs to realize that. And besides, she’s put off college for two years so she could look after Momma. It’s about time she got to do something for herself. And for the record, I don’t see you helping Momma any.”

  Ethan shrugged a shoulder. “I’m a busy man. Got work to do keeping everybody safe.”

  Noah folded his arms across his chest. It took everything he had not to tell Ethan to shut up. Noah hated the way Ethan went around parroting Daddy’s favorite phrase. Daddy was always talking about keeping people safe but he had a checkered record on that score as far as Noah was concerned. Ethan really believed he was doing God’s work out there every day, fighting the bad guys, who were practically nonexistent in Magnolia Harbor.

  And he probably was doing God’s work. But why had he chosen to model himself after Daddy? Daddy had done nothing but criticize Ethan from the moment he came into the world. How the hell did Ethan put up with Daddy’s constant commentary about his failures? Noah had always been the fair-haired child in the family. Daddy had never criticized him.

  And yet it was Noah who felt every one of Daddy’s disappointments about Ethan, more than Ethan himself. If Noah could convince his brother to leave this town, he’d do it in a New York minute. But the ship had sailed on Ethan.

  “So are you gonna stay?” Ethan asked into Noah’s sour thoughts.

  “No. What part of ‘I’m leaving with Momma and Abby’ didn’t you understand?”

  “The part where you ended up here at this clinic,” Ethan said, his mouth twitching a little as if he was trying to hide smile. As usual, Noah’s snippy comeback had rolled right off Ethan’s back.

  “A dog got hit by a car. What? Did you want me to turn my back on that?”

  Ethan shook his head, his winning smile appearing like the sun behind a cloud. “Granny sure did find a way to get her hooks into you after all.”

  This might well be true but Noah wasn’t going to admit it. “No, it was an emergency.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.” Ethan strolled over to one of the chairs and dropped into it. He propped his feet up against the wall, leaving a scuff mark. “Daddy’s been wondering if you might play on the first responders softball team for the big Fourth of July charity event.”

  “What charity event?”

  “It’s new. Organized by the Gullah Heritage Foundation. They’re trying to raise money for a new museum. There’s a charity game between the town’s first responders and the merchants, and an open-air market with food vendors and stuff. Daddy wants to know if you’ll play on our team.”

  “I’m not a first responder,” he said mechanically.

  “BS. Of course you are. You came running when there was an emergency. Besides, we figure, with you on our team, we’re sure to win.”

  And winning was everything to Daddy, even at a charity event where winning wasn’t the object. But then Daddy thought winning was the only thing. “I’m not going to be here on the Fourth of July,” Noah said. “So tell Daddy no for me.”

  Ethan continued to grin. “How much you wanna bet you are here on the Fourth? I mean, you’re standing in the middle of a veterinary clinic in need of a vet. So my money’s on you still being here because I know Granny, and I know Momma, and I know you.”

  Ethan stood up and headed toward the door. “Daddy wants to know why you haven’t come by to say hey.”

  Daddy could rot in hell. Noah didn’t respond to Ethan’s question.

  Ethan pushed open the door. “You shouldn’t ignore him, you know? He’s your daddy. And it’s high time y’all buried the hatchet. Momma’s happ
ier without him, you know. So you should quit blaming him about the divorce. They’re almost friends now.”

  Almost but not quite. And that suited Noah fine. He said nothing because he didn’t blame Daddy for the divorce. No, that wasn’t what had crawled under his skin like an infection. He blamed Daddy for Duke. And that was enough.

  “Think about it, bro’,” Ethan said. “I’ll see you ’round.”

  * * *

  Not too long after Ethan left, Abby stopped by the clinic bearing one of Rafferty’s Everything Burgers in a polystyrene box. She also brought a blow-up mattress, sleeping bag, and pillow.

  “Granny called and asked me to take care of you,” she said, handing him the take-out container. “She also told me all about your dog. She says we should name him Prince.”

  If it weren’t for the aroma of the burger, cheese, and bacon, he might have snarled at his little sister. Instead his stomach growled. He was hungry.

  “The dog doesn’t need a name,” he said, opening the box. He breathed in the goodness of Rafferty’s Everything Burger. It was a good quarter pound of Grade A beef wrapped in bacon and cheese. He picked it up and took a delicious bite. Now that was food fit for a man.

  “I think Prince is a good name,” Abby said, dropping the pillow she’d been carrying under her arm onto one of the reception chairs. “I’d like to meet him.”

  “He’s in the kennel room,” Noah said through the food in his mouth.

  “Gross.” Abby wrinkled her nose.

  Noah swallowed. “Brat.”

  She smiled and walked past him, escaping his brotherly attempt to swat her backside. He followed her into the kennel room, where she sank down onto the floor and made friends with the dog.

  He ate his burger and watched his little sister as she petted the dog’s nose through the kennel bars and called him Prince. He detested that name. But he didn’t have the heart to scold Abby. In fact, he’d never had any ability to scold Abby. She was fourteen years younger than he was, born two weeks after Duke died.