“How are things, Bella?” Maggie asked.
Bella sighed, dreamily. “It’s been a beautiful day. I’m just up from a nap.”
Grace spat a sigh and Jake wagged his head, a goofy grin on his face.
A voice cut into the banter. “What’re all you losers smirking about?” Lacy, their middle sister, joined the call, irascible as ever.
Maggie quirked a look at her. “Are we keeping you from something?”
Lacy sipped her wine. “This boring ritual is taking me away from my nightly quiet time, yes. Let’s get this started, shall we?”
Maggie sighed and looked from sibling to sibling. In some ways, Lacy was right. Their weekly call had become a ritual and a little redundant. Maggie didn’t believe in living with regret, but a thought did nag at her: If she and her sisters and brother had come to the house as a group regularly before their parents had died, would all these calls even be necessary?
“Maggie?” Jake caught her attention with one raised eyebrow.
Startled back into the present, she nodded. “You’re right, Lacy. Let’s get started.”
Maggie sat on the tiny back porch of the old beach house, marveling at the swaths of translucent white painted across the sky’s light blue canvas. Had the sky always been this gorgeous? Life could have been so different if she had slowed down and thought about the future before making such a life-changing decision about it. What if she had come back here years ago with baby in tow?
She already knew the answer to that. Colibri was too small for that scenario to be anything but messy. Although her marriage ended up disastrous, Maggie would not have wanted Eva to grow up as the talk of the beach.
Perhaps this was partly why her mother had urged her to marry Mick. She’d had the best intentions, despite the eventual outcome …
Maggie drew swirls on the faded wooden balcony, smooth and splinter-free from years of sun and salt. She had to be honest with herself. Maggie had wanted to make her own way—she had always had an independent streak, and though it had yet to pay off, she would not be giving up anytime soon. Regret caught her in the windpipe and she swallowed it down hard. No time for that. Someday, she would be able to support Eva in a nice house like this.
In the meantime, she would tell her daughter tales of growing up here—the good memories of her siblings and parents—and provide her with all the adventure she could scrape up. Even if it killed her.
“Mom?” Eva peered out the back screen door. “Do you think I need my water shoes?”
Maggie smiled despite herself. Eva woke up excited and had been getting ready for an hour, doing what, Maggie wasn’t sure. “Just bring a pair of flip-flops in case the sand gets hot,” she said. “You probably won’t wear them long.”
“And you’re sure they’re going to let me borrow a surfboard?”
“Yes. Uncle Jake confirmed that for me. We good?”
“‘Good!”
The door slammed shut and Maggie blew out another sigh. Last night, her sisters gave her so much garbage for her reticence about letting Eva attend surf camp. Neither Grace nor Bella seemed to realize Maggie’s aversion to seeing Luke again, although Lacy gave her more than one knowing glance. At one point, she wanted to reach through the screen and smack that cocky smile off her sister’s face.
Instead, Maggie had ignored the often-sardonic looks her sister had cast her way.
In the end, Lacy suggested that Maggie take a “chill pill,” and then the rest of the room had a laugh at her expense.
Whatever. Someday they would all be parents, and they would find out then how some decisions were very difficult to make.
The screen door shut again. With a bag hitched over her shoulder, Eva stood waiting, a fat grin on her face. Maggie grabbed a beach bag that she had stocked with snacks, and together they trekked northward along the sand, until Eva ran on ahead.
After several minutes of trudging through thick sand, Maggie’s calves began to burn, yet another reminder that she wasn’t a freewheeling teen any longer. Sheesh. If she kept up this line of thinking, her almost-thirty self would start acting like the new … fifty.
She picked up the pace, determined not to let something as small as pulled calf muscles ruin her day. Plenty of other scenarios could manage that. Maggie still had a hard time believing that she had allowed her daughter and her brother to convince her to add this detour into her schedule … her sisters’ admonishments not forgotten.
At least Luke wouldn’t be teaching her kid. Though she’d never told her daughter about how she had once felt about Luke, his being here today would have been just too close for comfort. With so much heartache from the past year on her mind, the last thing she needed was to relive her romance—and breakup—with bad boy Luke Hunter.
Banners advertising the surf camp whipped in the breeze. By the time Maggie reached check-in, Eva had already gotten her camp swag and bounded over to meet the other campers. Her daughter had never met a stranger, and though that scared her to bits sometimes, a part of her felt deeply thankful. As a kid, Maggie often vacillated between speaking her mind and hiding behind her own shadow. Sometimes lately she found herself leaning toward the latter, but being a stylist had kept her from withdrawing completely.
“You can go now, Mom,” Eva told her. “I’m fine.”
Maggie nodded, biting back a yeah, right. She knew better than to say as much in front of Eva’s new friends. Instead, she said, “I think I’ll stay awhile.” She pointed to an area outside of the action. “I’m going to sit on a towel and read for a bit before I head back and do some more painting. If you need me, I’ll—”
“I won’t!”
And … she was off. Maggie shook her head, fluffed out her towel, threw her bag onto it, and plunked herself down. She opened up her e-reader to the latest Sea Glass Inn novel she’d downloaded, and within minutes, found herself lost in story, vaguely aware of the wind dying away and the onset of heat from the sun rolling into position overhead.
“Must be a good story.”
Maggie’s eyes snapped up, and she shaded them quickly from streaming sunlight. Luke’s sideways smile greeted her, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.
Maggie ignored his comment. “I guess you’re here to check on your camp.” She glanced to where the kids were all taking a swim test. “Looks like your staff has it under control.”
“I’m sure they do. Many of them have been doing this every summer for … years.”
She noted the way he glanced at her slightly when he said years. Why did that bug her so much? He certainly hadn’t been pining for her—why would he? Unless there was something wrong with his marriage, and no way would she step into that. Not after experiencing a soul-crushing rejection herself.
Besides, she long ago forgot about him, about their teen-shaped crush. Well, maybe forgot was not the right word, but she’d buried it all right. Besides, Maggie had grown up since then. Love was much more than sex, much more than moony gazes at a cute boy. She reminded herself that the only reason these particular memories seemed to tower over her at the moment was because of Luke’s sudden presence.
Luke motioned with his chin toward the sand beside her. “May I sit?”
She shrugged.
Apparently, he took that as a yes and settled onto the sand beside her, his knees pointing toward the sun, his arms relaxed across them. He swung a look at her, his gaze sliding slowly to the bag at her side. She noticed a thin scar above his lip that hadn’t been there before. “You still a vegetarian?”
Her mind thought to her teenaged past, when she was trying to save the world one cow at a time. “Not in years.”
Luke shrank back, obviously surprised.
She frowned. “What?”
“You were pretty vocal about it back then. Shamed a lot of guys who ate burgers after a session.”
Maggie rolled her gaze upward, though she knew he was right. Thing was, she’d also forgotten all about her teenaged love affair with vegetarianism.
One thing she had not forgotten, though, was how displeased her mother was about her food choices. Once, frustrated by her daughter’s constant criticism of the daily menu, her mother had suggested that Maggie just “go graze out on the lawn!”
Pretty hard to do when surrounded by sand.
Maggie’s ex-husband, Mick, loved beef, so she had learned to cook it, often with fancy vegetables and salads to satisfy that yearning within her for something healthy to go alongside it. But after he left and Eva began to turn up her cute little nose at Maggie’s attempts at gourmet foods, she gave up. Soon mac and cheese and hamburgers or chicken or hot dogs—accentuated with a carrot stick or two—had become the mainstay in her kitchen.
“Well, I’m sure they survived.” She paused. “Unless they didn’t from all that, you know, cholesterol.”
“Ha. Right.”
Luke relaxed back on his elbows, revealing his flat abdomen and long, muscular legs. Other than the crow’s-feet that appeared when he squinted out to sea, it was as if nothing had changed. She turned away. He was still the guy who had caught her heart every summer when her family would land in Colibri at the beginning of the season. Only he’d aged, in a good way.
Some things weren’t fair.
Especially since she wasn’t sure if she could exactly say the same for herself.
Maggie’s mind wandered back to her ten-year high school reunion a couple of years ago. The event had revealed former football players with beer guts and heartthrobs with bad attitudes and the inability to age well. She’d run into plenty of thirty-year-olds who looked closer to forty and beyond.
But Luke? Somehow over the years since she’d been gone, he had moved from a wiry boy they all called Stringbean, to a thick-muscled, wholly ripened man. She half-expected him to turn over onto his side and spear her with those gray-blue eyes of his.
Maggie forced her gaze away. She had a book to read and a kid to look out for—where was she again?
She craned her neck and spotted Eva right away. Her daughter had already proven her swimming ability—something Maggie had prided herself on—and was goofing around with several new friends who waited on the shore for the next phase of camp.
“So I’m guessing that’s not a salad in your bag then.”
“Are you hungry or something?” Maggie grabbed her bag, dragging it over to her lap. “I’m getting the idea that you didn’t manage breakfast this morning.”
Luke chuckled. “No, thanks. I’m good.”
“Then why the interest in my eating habits?” She wanted to add: We haven’t seen each other in years and this is all you can think of to talk about?
“Just making conversation.”
“Hm.”
He quieted now, the crush of waves tossing up memories that she’d hoped would get pulled back out with the tide. She didn’t want for this to feel commonplace or normal. Several times she darted a glance around, expecting to see CeCe show up, looking like she had walked out of a fashion blog.
And their child. A daughter, she’d heard, though Maggie had worked hard at not learning too much more than that.
She frowned, biting the inside of her lip. Sitting here with Luke, watching her child—their child—felt all too wrong. Her stomach roiled enough that she thought she might be sick.
“You all right? Not worrying about Eva, I hope. My staff members are all great teachers, if that’s what’s got you looking like you had a bad bite of sushi.”
His voice was teasing. He always did like to tease, but she would not be falling for it this time. Or ever again. Some things were not worth repeating.
Maggie sucked in a breath, settling her stomach the best she could. She changed the subject. “Looks like a pretty big surf event coming to Colibri next month. Will tents be pitched on the sand or …?”
Luke exhaled. “I’d forgotten all about the way things used to run around here. In answer to your question, not likely.”
“Really?”
“Town’s trying to keep the homeless from camping on the beaches, so they’ve outlawed it for everyone.”
“I see.”
He sighed. “So people have been opening up their homes, renting rooms or whole houses for the event.”
“Makes sense.”
Luke wagged his head. “Yes and no, especially if you’re against vacation rentals, which many of the locals are.”
“Wow. It’s all more complicated than I thought.” She quieted a moment, wisps of her hair blowing on the breeze. Gratitude for a subject change filled her.
“Complicated is an understatement.”
Didn’t she know it. “Well,” she finally said, “my dad was never that crazy about seeing all those campers in front of our beach house, but my sisters and I thought it was fun.”
Luke coughed out a surprised laugh.“You were flirts.”
She snapped a look at him, expecting to see accusation in his expression. Instead, his eyes danced.
She licked her lips, thinking. “Untrue. We were just … curious.”
“Ha. Right. Curious flirts. And your mom was an accomplice.”
Maggie shrank back.
Luke quirked that crooked smile at her again, and it sent a weird chill of a ripple through her.
She forced her gaze away from his face. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
“All I can say is sending you all out with baskets of cookies was brilliant.”
Maggie swallowed, suddenly remembering a side of her mother she had not thought of in a long while. She liked to bake. And to laugh. And mostly, to share. Luke was … right. When scores of surfers showed up for events in the summer, camping right out on their beach, she would scoot her and her sisters outside to distribute cookies. She kind of recalled Jake hovering, as if for protection.
She slid a glance at Luke. “Okay. I’m beginning to remember that. My mom had a good and giving heart, but, well, let me just say that I’d never send Eva into a den of surfers with a bunch of cookies!”
Luke leaned back and laughed, the sound of it hearty and oddly high-pitched. He lifted his chin again and wagged his head, smiling. “That’s the Maggie I knew.”
Once again, Maggie pulled her chin away from Luke’s gaze. She wasn’t a kid anymore and didn’t believe in holding grudges, but time had not healed her wounded heart completely, at least not enough to fall back into her old ways. And especially not with a former, married crush.
Luke pulled himself up, a light dusting of sand knocking across her feet. He looked down. “They’re getting ready to do some board work. I’m going to go talk to the staff. Any message you’d like me to give Eva?”
Maggie scoffed. “Not if I want to keep my good mom card.”
He grinned. “Understood.” He paused. “Listen, I have to get back to the shop. Good catching up with you, Maggie.”
“Hm, yes. You as well.” She gave him the most non-committal wave as he headed down closer to the water. Thankfully, he hadn’t shown up here in his bare feet, wearing a wetsuit and carrying his board. She was long over him now, but did she have to be reminded of the surfer he once was and how he always could make her swoon just by showing up?
No. Positively no. Maggie dragged in a breath and allowed it to roll through her slowly, oxygen offering her relief. She had weathered her first test and passed. She and Eva would likely be gone from Colibri Beach when the surf competition came to town, and for that, Maggie was grateful. Otherwise, she would be subjected to women throwing themselves at Luke like they had a dozen years ago.
That was something she never, ever wanted to see again.
Three
Maggie shimmied her feet deeper into the sand as she twisted her hair into a pom-pom on her head. Her phone rang and she groaned, dropping her twist of hair. “Hey, Daisy,” she said.
“Maggie, I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to change my mom’s hair appointment.”
“Everything all right?”
“She’s still asleep. Guess Jake and I kept her up too l
ate, you know, talking and all.”
“You mean making out like a couple of teenagers.”
Daisy giggled. “You could say that.”
Maggie smiled. Her brother drove her crazy when they were kids, but she was happy for him. He and his generous heart deserved love and she couldn’t think of a better person than Daisy Mcafee to join their family. A ripple of sadness fluttered through her, a wish that she could find something similar in her life, someone to talk to, to parent with, but she chased the feeling away.
“So, anyway,” Daisy continued, “is there any way we could reschedule for tomorrow?”
“Absolutely. I’ll be there.”
She’d barely disconnected the call when her phone rang again. Maggie frowned. She didn’t recognize the number, but it was coming from Arizona. “Hello?”
“Maggie Morelli? This is Cassandra, owner of the salon, Marshmallow.”
“Oh! Thank you for calling me back.”
“How can I help you?”
“Well, I’m looking to make a change.” No need to mention the situation was quickly becoming dire. “I’m hoping you have a chair available?”
“Normally, I would say no, but as a matter of fact, one has opened up. Are you interested in applying for it?”
Maggie glanced out to the sea, its surface glimmering. She couldn’t stay here forever, tempting as the thought of seeing those waves every day might be. Eventually the family beach house would be sold and Maggie would receive her portion, but until then, she needed to make a living. Except for family members scattered about, everything and everyone Eva knew was in Arizona, so it was the logical choice. If only she had been able to pay her rent …
She brushed off that sad thought and instead asked for the cost of a weekly chair rental at Marshmallow, one of the most sought-after salons near her home.
A moment later, she hung up. The welcome sunlight had turned hot to her skin and she had to wrap her towel around her for shade. Unfortunately, that only made her sweat. Maggie blew out a sigh. No way could she afford such a high chair rental. Not unless she had a slew of customers to bring with her. Oh, she had some, but her old salon shut down abruptly. It was in a touristy area, which meant not a lot of regulars. And then the bills piled up and she found herself unable to pay everything.
Luke's Second Chance Family Page 4