My Kind of You (A Trillium Bay Novel Book 1)

by Tracy Brogan

  “Yes, I distinctly heard him mention the Mahoneys. Ryan told me that lots of their clients like to remain confidential to avoid situations just like this, so I have to imagine that’s why June hired them. She knew Bridget O’Malley wouldn’t sell to them, and she also knows that putting a three-story building in that spot will completely ruin the view from your rental cottage. This is a double-whammy from those dia-fucking-bolical Mahoneys.” Emily was finally starting to understand her grandmother’s extreme dislike of them. She was feeling an extreme dislike of them, too. And an extreme dislike of the Taggerts as well. “I just can’t believe Ryan wouldn’t mention it to me when I said we were thinking about buying the house for you. He never breathed a word of it.”

  “Why don’t we just tell the Taggerts not to build on it?” Chloe asked, peeking her head around the corner. Emily really did need to talk to her daughter about eavesdropping, but the kid came by it naturally.

  Emily stood up and hugged her instead.

  “We could try that, honey, but money is very important to men like the Taggerts. Ryan and his brothers are dedicated to making it and keeping it.” She sat back down with a depressed thump. “I guess the one bit of good news is that Jewel called me earlier to say the closing for the San Antonio house is the day after tomorrow. Gigi, if you don’t mind keeping an eye on Chloe for a few days, I’ll fly to San Antonio on the next available flight.”

  “Of course I don’t mind. Chloe and I will have fun. We’ll take some selfies.”

  “I just feel like we don’t have all the information we need, Mom,” Chloe said. “I mean, how did you find out about this deal anyway?”

  Secrets. Secrets. Secrets. At least Chloe wasn’t asking why she was in Ryan’s room. She must not have heard that part. “Um, I was with Ryan and I heard him talking to his brother on the phone, and then I saw the drawings he made.”

  “But did you ask him? You should ask him.”

  Chloe was probably right. Emily should ask him, but right now she felt angry and hurt. It just seemed like he could have told her he was working for the Mahoneys somewhere between the Hi, I’m Ryan, and the I just have to kiss you.

  Gigi stood up, draining the last of her martini. “Well, my darlings, we can talk about this some more tomorrow. I need to get my beauty rest.” She leaned over and kissed Chloe on the forehead, and then she came around to the other side of the table to kiss Emily’s forehead, too. “Don’t worry about this too much, honey. Things have a way of working out, and I’m sure this will, too.”

  Emily’s phone buzzed for the third time since she’d left Ryan’s hotel. Same text message, slightly different wording. He’d left her a voice mail, too.

  Hey, I’m kind of worried. Hope everything is okay. Call me back.

  She didn’t want to talk about this on the phone, and she didn’t want to have the conversation by text, either. She just wanted to ignore him.

  Ryan Taggert was an asshole. He had deliberately misled her. He’d misled a gullible 102-year-old woman, too, and he did it just to make a buck. He was not at all the man she thought he was.

  Emily leaned over to grab her laptop from the counter, flipping it open so she could look at flight times. “Chloe, you should head on upstairs. I just need to make some plane reservations, and then I’m going to bed too.”

  “Okay, but I still feel like if we just ask Mrs. O’Malley not to sell it, then she won’t. Or if she has sold it, I really think we just need to ask Ryan and Tag not to build there.”

  Emily patted her arm. “I hope you’re right, honey. I’ll ask them about it when I get back from San Antonio.”

  “How long will you be there?”

  “Four or five days. I have to pack up all our stuff at home, I mean, from Jewel’s house, and put it in storage until we figure out where we want to live.”

  “Would this be a good time to mention that I want to try living here? Maybe not for forever, but for a year or so? Just until my boobs grow in and then we can go back to San Antonio and I can tell Anastasia Whitcomb to kiss my butt.”

  Emily smiled for the first time in several hours. “Do you really think you want to live here?”

  Chloe came up and hugged her. “I think it would be fun. We could help Aunt Brooke become the mayor, and I could ride horses all year round. I really like my new friends, too. Susie Mahoney is like my best friend in the world.”

  Chloe looked so earnest and hopeful. What was Emily fighting against? She had everything she needed right here. Eventually Taggert Property Management would finish their jobs and get the hell off her island. She was the one who had a right to be here. Not them.

  “Probably, honey. I can’t give you an answer tonight because I’m kind of confused about some stuff, but I promise I will think about it.”

  “Do you want to know the other reason I like it here?”

  “Why?”

  “People have started calling me Niblet. I think that’s kind of cute.”

  “Thanks for giving me a ride to the boat docks, Dad,” Emily said as she sat next to her father in the police wagon early the next morning. “You really didn’t have to.”

  “I know I didn’t have to, but once in a while maybe you could try to let me do something nice.”

  “Okay, I will. In that case, can I ask you for a favor?”

  “Of course.”

  “Will you stop by the cottage I’m renovating once or twice a day and make sure my crew is actually working and not doing yoga or square dancing or just generally wasting time?”

  “I can absolutely do that. Will you do something for me?”

  “I can try.”

  “Okay. I won’t tell you to move home because I don’t think that’s my business. You have to do what you think is best for you and Chloe, but I want you to promise to come visit more often. And if you decide you do want to move here, I could sure use some updating at my place. Nothing too fancy, but it might be time for me to get a dishwasher or replace the green appliances.”

  “Are you offering me a job?”

  “A job, a place to stay, whatever you need.”

  Emily turned her face away to brush off a tear. If Harlan saw her crying, he’d regret saying anything at all. “I think maybe I would like to move home, Dad. Maybe not permanently, but long enough so Chloe can see what she thinks of a Michigan winter, so maybe we could stay for a year and see how it goes?”

  “I like that idea. I like that idea a lot.”

  She smiled. “Me too.”

  There. That was one decision made. She was going to pack up her stuff in San Antonio and ship it here. She’d miss Jewel like crazy, but since her friend now had a new job and a new fiancé, realistically she wasn’t going to have much time for Emily for a while anyway. She’d just have to come to Trillium Bay for a summer vacation.

  “Can I ask you something, Peach?” Harlan said a few minutes later.

  “Of course.”

  “What do you think I ought to do about that Taggert fella and your sister?”

  He was asking her opinion. That was a pretty big deal.

  “I don’t really know, Dad, but one thing I suggest is that you don’t freeze Lilly out. You might not realize this, but sometimes you’re a little hard to talk to.”

  She saw the slight twitch of his lips. That was the Harlan Callaghan version of LOL, so she was satisfied.

  “That might be true, so I’ll try. But this is a hard one. It was bad enough when you took off, but at least I could understand the attraction. But this? Her and him? He’s my age. Do you know how wrong I’d feel spending time with someone her age? It’s indecent.”

  “I’m not sure what to tell you. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, either, but it’s Lilly’s life, and she has to learn to deal with the consequences of her decisions, just like I had to.”

  Apparently Emily was still learning that lesson, because by all accounts her judgment in men had not improved much in the past fifteen years. She wasn’t likely to meet anyone on the island
, either, but at the moment, that felt like a blessing.

  “Here we are,” her father said, pulling on the reins. The horses shuffled to a lazy stop, and Emily grabbed her bag from the back.

  “Thanks again, Dad.” She felt another tear coming and flicked it away. “I’ll be back in five days. I’ll see you then.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  She climbed down from the buggy and smiled up at him. “Me too, Dad.” And she actually meant it.

  Chapter 31

  The first thing Emily Chambers noticed five days later when she stepped off the ferryboat and walked down the dock toward Main Street of Trillium Bay was Dmitri Krushnic in his beekeeping hat sitting out front of Joe’s Cuppa Joe enjoying some version of coffee that included whipped cream and sprinkles.

  “Hiya, Peach. Good to have you back. How was San Antonio?”

  She shrugged and readjusted the travel bag slung over her shoulder. “It was okay, I guess, but can you keep a secret?” She knew he could not.

  He put his hand over his heart solemnly. “I’ll take it to the grave.”

  That was a risky promise to make, knowing his track record. “I’ve decided to move back home. Here to the island.”

  His smile broadened, exposing that gap between his two front teeth. “Why, that’s wonderful news. Just wonderful, and I promise my lips are sealed. No one will hear it from me.”

  She sincerely doubted that, but no matter. Peach had come home to stay, and telling Dmitri it was a secret was certainly the most expedient way to spread the word.

  She kept on going, her tennis shoes making little squeaks against the pavement as she walked. Most of her summer clothes were already at Gigi’s, and during her stay in San Antonio, Emily had packed up all of her worldly possessions and arranged to have them shipped to the island. She’d had a lovely, bittersweet visit with Jewel. They’d hugged and cried and made promises to always, always keep in touch, and Emily knew they would. A friendship like theirs could survive the distance.

  In Emily’s wallet was a cashier’s check made out to Margaret O’Reilly-Callaghan-Harper-Smith for the full amount of the loan, and another cashier’s check with the balance of Emily’s money to be deposited into the Trillium Bay Savings & Loan. It felt very good to be paying her grandmother back, and it had felt very, very good to close on that disaster house. And it felt very, very, very good to be back home on Wenniway Island.

  During her long day of travel from San Antonio to Michigan, Emily had time to think and plan and strategize about her future. For all the good that would do. Life had a way of shifting under her feet like quicksand, and she had learned to just make the best of it. Like Gigi always said, “When God closes a door, he shoves you out the window.” Emily knew this lesson better than anyone, so making long-term plans was probably pointless, but one thing she knew for certain about her future? Ryan Taggert wasn’t going to be in it.

  He’d tried to call her twice while she was gone, but she didn’t even listen to the messages. What could he possibly say that would make up for the fact that he’d tricked an old lady into selling her land to Taggert Property Management when she was really selling it to the Mahoney sisters? That was despicable, and it was a clear demonstration of his priorities. Business came first. People and their feelings came second.

  The truth was, he’d all but lied to Emily, too, and that betrayal cut deep. Not because Mrs. O’Malley’s property was that important to her, but because his dishonesty revealed the core of who he was: a man more concerned about money than integrity. And the fact that he was willing to build something right in front of Gigi’s cottage, laughing with his brother about how it would ruin the view for Gigi’s place? A place he knew Emily had put her heart and soul into renovating? Well, that revealed exactly where she fell on his list of priorities. At the bottom. For all she knew, he’d build that three-story bed-and-breakfast and put the trash dumpsters right behind it so everyone sitting on the porch of Gigi’s freshly remodeled cottage would smell nasty, foul old garbage instead of lilacs and fudge. That stunk, and so did he. And so did her broken heart. She’d let herself fall for him. For the soulful gazes and wistful smiles. For the muscles and the kissing and the amazing sex. She’d let herself believe it was real when she should have known better. It wasn’t real.

  But she wasn’t going to let that stop her now. Her broken heart would mend. She didn’t need a man in her life, and she certainly didn’t need one like Ryan Taggert. And she’d figure out some way to keep the view from the cottage pretty, too. Tall trees, pretty flowering shrubs, something. And if she couldn’t buy Mrs. O’Malley’s house, she’d buy some other cottage. Delores Crenshaw was looking none too healthy, after all, so Emily had options. She’d figure out a way. She always did, and she and Chloe would be just fine.

  Thinking of Chloe, Emily picked up her pace. She was eager to see her daughter but needed to stop by the cottage first to see if any progress had been made in her absence. She trusted that her dad had kept his word and stopped by, but that didn’t mean much had gotten accomplished. Her crew had all the supplies they needed to get most everything finished, but, well, she knew how often things went wrong when she was there, so she could only imagine what had happened while she was gone.

  It was nearly six in the evening as she walked up the steps and heard voices, laughter, and the sound of work. At this time of day? Either that was a good sign or a very, very bad sign. She opened the door and was amazed, like Dorothy landing in Oz. Her crew had made tremendous progress! The kitchen cabinets and counters were installed, the floors gleamed, the light fixtures hung in just the right spots, the broken tiles around the fireplace had been replaced, and even the furniture had been arranged. What. The. Hell? The place looked amazing.

  “Miss Chambers!” Tiny said. “Welcome back. What do you think?” He spun slowly in a circle, arms outstretched, and she couldn’t help but notice he was wearing neither his leg splint nor his electric dog collar, and he had on a new clean shirt. He looked like a whole new man. That Gloria Persimmons was having a very positive effect on him.

  “I’m shocked, Tiny. In the best possible way. Everything looks wonderful.”

  “Hiya, boss lady,” Horsey said, strolling through the room with painting supplies in his hand. “Glad to have you back. We were just cleaning up.”

  “Namaste,” Georgie said as she and Yoga Matt followed close behind him. Matt smiled and gave her a nod.

  “Wyatt and Garth already left for the day, but all the wiring is finished. Just a few switch plates left to install and a few other things. I left the punch list on the kitchen island if you’d like to take a look,” Tiny said.

  “I am speechless, Tiny. I can’t believe how much you’ve all accomplished in just five days.”

  “Well, we had a little help.”

  She looked back at her foreman. “Help from whom?’

  “From the Taggerts. They’ve been here the past couple of days and even brought over a few guys from the Clairmont. More hands sure make things go faster. Especially hands that know what they’re doing.”

  Ryan’s hands certainly knew what to do, but she didn’t want to think about that right now because she was mad at him. Very, very mad. “Ryan and Tag have been helping? Why?”

  Tiny’s face was guileless. “I don’t know, ma’am. I guess you’d have to ask for yourself. Tag’s not here, but Ryan’s upstairs replacing some windows.”

  He was here? Ryan was here? She wasn’t really ready for that confrontation. But why on earth had he done this work? Guilt? Some pointless apology? It was too late for that.

  “If you don’t mind, we were just heading out for the day,” Tiny added, “but we’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning.” He picked up the enormous tackle box that served as his lunch box and made his way to the front door. The others followed, calling out their goodbyes and smiling broadly at her as they passed. They were proud of themselves, and she smiled back, because she was proud of them, too.

&
nbsp; But Ryan was upstairs, and she was too curious to resist. She set down her travel bag and made her way up the steps. Slowly, though her heart was thumping as if she’d sprinted all the way from the boat dock. She heard some tapping in the bedroom on her left, so she walked in, and yep, there he was in faded jeans and a white undershirt, putting a glob of spackle on the wall with his finger. His back was to her so she got to admire those muscles for a second before he turned around and she’d have to remember why she was mad at him. Because she was mad. Very, very mad.

  “Um, hello?”

  He turned around at her words, and she was right. There were all those muscles on the front side of him, too, and damned if she didn’t have to work extremely hard to remember why she was mad. Oh yes. That’s right. He was ruining her view. Ironic, really, since the view she had right now of him was pretty enjoyable.

  “Hey. Welcome back.” His voice seemed a little huskier than usual.

  “Thanks.”

  They stood there awkwardly, staring as he wiped his hands with a work rag. “You ran out on me,” he finally said. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  Now she scowled. “It wasn’t very nice to buy the property right in front of this cottage without telling me, either. Seems like you might have mentioned that when we were talking about it in bed. And it wasn’t very nice for you to trick an old lady into selling you her house, either.”

  “Chloe said that’s why you were mad, and you were absolutely right to be.” He shook his head, a rueful smile barely tilting the corner of his mouth.

  “You talked to Chloe?”

  “Yeah.” That smile turned sheepish. “While you were in San Antonio, she and Susie Mahoney demanded a meeting with me, my dad, Gigi, and June Mahoney. It wasn’t easy getting those two old women in a room together, but the kids were adamant. Lilly helped, but it was all Chloe’s idea. That’s some clever girl you’ve got there. She’ll make a great business manager someday.”