Probably not, but maybe.
Bailey opened her arms and enfolded Ana in a hug. Ana relaxed into it, burying her face into Bailey’s sweet-smelling shoulder. The tenuous hold Ana had on her emotions snapped completely at the first hug she’d received since finding federal agents in her closet.
“Rough time of it, huh?”
Ana nodded as Bailey patted her back. “Why don’tcha come on in and I’ll fix ya a cuppa coffee. You can tell me all about it.”
Before shepherding Ana through the door, Bailey stopped to take the weathervane museum poster out of the shop window. She shooed Ana to a small dining table in the back, where the Laine family would scarf down dinner between customers on busy nights. She poured coffee into a mug that read, “Michigan—America’s Mitten.” “It’s good to see ya, hon. Folks have been worried about ya, what with everything that’s been on the news.”
Ana gave her a skeptical look and Bailey added. “OK, the decent folks around here have been worried about you. Some of the more assholish types have been crowin’ over it.”
“That’s what I thought,” Ana muttered into her mug, making Bailey laugh. “It’s been really awful, Bailey. I can’t even express how awful. I don’t have the words. I don’t think I’ve even realized how much I’ve lost, but it’s just about everything—and I know that sounds dramatic and my mom would immediately remind me that I still have my health. But I can’t help but feel that I’m just surviving moment to moment.”
“Well, the good news is that it can’t get much worse,” Bailey said.
“I saw Ned this morning.”
“Wow, I stand corrected,” Bailey retorted, pursing her lips.
Ana laughed. “It was just about as bad as you can imagine.”
Bailey grimaced. “So, your first day back was kind of bad, but it’s gotta get better, right?”
“I’m not willing to speculate,” Ana said, shaking her head. “I have a feeling that would bite me on the ass.”
Ana nodded to the poster Bailey had retrieved from outside. It was just as badly designed as the other signage in town, in the same outdated sepia tones, emphasizing the many informative weather vane-related exhibits available at the museum. “What’s with the poster?”
Bonnie clucked her tongue. “Oh, I’m trying to figure out how to change it. If we don’t get more visitors, we’re going to have to close it after this summer.”
“You can’t close the museum!” Ana exclaimed. “That thing’s been open since our parents were kids! How else will people learn how Espoir Island contributed to the development of an extremely outdated method of determining which way the wind is blowing?”
Bailey shrugged. “The numbers have been down for years now. All the tourism numbers for the island have dropped over the years. I’m on the historical society board so I’ve seen them myself. People just aren’t buying what we’re selling. And with the museum run by public funds, and we just can’t justify the expense. Plus, Mrs. Larsson is getting ready to retire soon, so there’s no one to run the place anyway.”
Ana flopped back in her chair, feeling even more defeated than she had been this morning. How was she was supposed to a sell house on an island, where nobody wanted to visit, much less live?
“Oh, come on, it’s not all bad,” Bailey said, patting Ana’s hand. “Maybe things will pick up this summer. This last winter was pretty bad, so people will be desperate to get out of their houses and into the sun.”
Ana nodded, contemplating the graphically confused mess on the table.
“Do you mind if I take this with me?” Ana asked, picking it up. “I think I might have some ideas to make it…less repulsive.”
Bailey shrugged. “You can’t make it worse.”
“You’ve always been so relentlessly optimistic,” Ana noted. “Please stop that.”
After finishing her coffee, Ana left the shop with a promise to meet Bailey for dinner at the pasty shop some time that week. Bailey said she’d send her nephew, Charlie, along to the house with her groceries later, because Ana bought a bit more than she intended. (It turned out that food prices in Michigan were much lower than New York, even with the trouble of importing groceries to the island.) For just a moment, it felt like her day was looking up.
She decided to walk down to the weather vane museum herself. Surely it wouldn’t be difficult to lay out a better poster. She ran her own social media and had enough experience with design software suites to make her graphics. She had a knack for it and even designed her own website without it looking like a thirteen-year-old with Wordpress access made it. And if she was able to draw more people to the museum and more people to the island, maybe one of those people would buy her house…if she could manage to get it renovated.
One of these days, she would learn the lesson about lowering her guard.
“GUSTAVSSON!”
Ana turned to see Ned’s sister storming down the sidewalk toward her. Nell Fitzroy’s walk had always reminded Ana of one of those cartoon bulldogs in the old Warner Brothers shorts, all shoulder and arm motion while she glared at the world in general. She had the Fitzroy strong jaw and clear gray eyes, but with none of Ned’s humor to soften either.
Ana’s shoulders sagged. She didn’t have the patience for some “explaining herself” conversation in which she promised Nell that she wouldn’t hurt Ned again.
Fortunately for her, Nell didn’t want conversation. She wanted to punch Ana right in the face.
3
As her head snapped back, Ana realized she really should have seen that coming. At age nine, Nell had been kicked out of the island’s Brownie troop for breaking Bonnie’s front tooth with a right hook. Ana’s teeth felt intact, but her right cheekbone felt like it was going to explode.
How in the hell could such a short woman reach that high?
“You should have stayed your ass in the big city,” Nell spat. “We don’t need you coming around screwing up people’s lives.”
Before her head could recover its position, Ana brought her own right hand swinging up in an upper cut, catching Nell under her chin.
“Ow! Shit!” Ana howled, shaking her throbbing fingers. Hitting Nell hurt a lot more than smacking a reality housewife.
Nell yelped, cradling her chin with her right hand as she jabbed with her left. It was a wild swing that caught Ana in the chest. She cursed, clutching her throbbing breast. And pretty soon they were just rolling around on the icy sidewalk, taking swipes at each other. A string of increasingly colorful insults streamed out of Nell’s mouth like a profane fountain.
Vaguely, Ana heard the bell over the shop’s door jangle and Bailey grumble, “Oh, for cripes’ sake.”
“What in the hell is wrong with you, Nell?” Ana yelled. She’d never taken a punch to the boob. She didn’t recommend it.
“Ladies!” Ana heard a male voice shout through Nell’s curses. “Cut it out! Don’t make me get the pepper spray!”
A strong hand clamped her shoulder as Nell’s weight was lifted off of her. Nell was kicking at Ana as John Ferris, the town’s only sheriff’s deputy, held her in a half-nelson hold and dragged her away to plop her butt on a nearby truck bed.
“Are you nuts?” Ana yelled, clutching at her cheek. She pushed to her feet, leaning against the cedar wall. “I haven’t talked to you in twenty years and you punch me?”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t make your face so punchable!” Nell shot back, attempting to dart around John and swipe at Ana.
“Cut it out, Nell!” John shouted, forcing her to sit. John hadn’t changed much over the years, same athletic build, same rugged features he’d had when they were kids. He did look a bit more tired around the eyes, though, and Ana could only imagine that came from a lifetime spent wrangling drunken assholes when the winters really started getting to people.
“Now, do either one of you need medical attention?”
“No, but I would love to press charges against her, thank you, John,” Ana said, smiling sweetly.
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“Oh, please!” Nell snorted. “Like he’d take me to jail over this.”
John stood between the two of them, his hands raised. “Now, from what I saw, you were throwing punches, too, Ana. If I take one of you in, I’m going to have to take both.”
“My punches were in self-defense!” Ana cried.
“Well, I don’t know if I can believe that,” John said, clearing his throat before adding, “Given your history of violent behavior.”
Ana gasped. “History of—since when?”
John’s high cheeks flushed pink. “Since episode eight, season twelve of True Housewives of Manhattan.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to use someone’s behavior in another state against them, just because it was shown on television,” Ana replied.
John jerked his shoulders. “I know what I saw.”
“All right, fine. Take us both in, then.” Ana crossed her long arms over her chest, which was still throbbing, not that anyone cared.
“Really?” John asked with a frown.
Nell squawked indignantly, hopping off of the truck. “You can’t be serious!”
“Really,” Ana said, glaring at her.
John sighed, slapping his EISD baseball cap on his head. “Fine, let’s go on down to the station. I’m assuming I don’t have to cuff you.”
“Not me,” Ana said. “But you might consider a muzzle for her.”
“You might consider a muzzle for her,” Nell mimicked her under her breath as they followed John down the street.
“How old are you?” Ana scoffed.
When Nell didn’t respond, Ana grumbled, pulling her collar around her neck, “How is it still this cold? The first day of spring is next week!”
“Spoken like a flatlander,” Nell snickered.
The Espoir Island police station was a three-cell, one room jail built sometime in the 1930s. The crime rate on the island had always been rather low, beyond drunk and disorderlies, so the town didn’t devote much money to it. Each cell had a narrow cot, covered in a rough wool blanket, and not much else.
Poor John had basically inherited the job from his father, who refused to give up the sheriff job, despite being seventy-five years old. Sheriff Jacob Ferris was sleeping at his desk, his boots propped up on a drawer full of files, a basketball game blasting over the radio. John rolled his eyes and sat at a much smaller desk, tapping on a computer keyboard and bringing it to life. “You know the drill, Nell. Cell Number Two.”
John opened the door to the third cell, and motioned for Ana to step through the barred gate. She dropped onto the narrow jailhouse cot, the springs screaming in protest. Still, she thought maybe it was more comfortable than her old mattress at home. Now that she was no longer fueled by righteous indignation, she was starting to doubt how smart it was to insist on charging Nell. She didn’t have anyone to bail her out. She wasn’t sure anyone on the island would be willing to risk bail money on her.
“How often do you get arrested?” Ana asked Nell, leaning against the bars between them.
Nell shrugged as she crossed her ankles on the cot. “Less, since John and I started dating.”
Ana’s head whipped toward the deputy, who gave a resigned shake of his head, as he pulled some forms out of his desk. “Damn.”
Nell shrugged.
“Do you feel better?” Ana asked. “Now, that you’ve vented your anger all over my face?”
“A little bit,” Nell admitted. “I’d say I’m sorry. But I’m not.”
“I guess I respect that,” Ana muttered. “And really, that was a greeting a bit more in line with what I was expecting here. I’m kind of glad to get it over with, to be honest. So, how have you been? Good to see you. You haven’t changed a bit, you lunatic.”
Nell threw her head back and laughed, wincing at the pain in her chin. “Good to see you, too. You come back here to screw with my brother’s head again?”
“Not specifically.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” Nell admitted, plucking at the gray blanket. “When you left, it wrecked Ned. He likes to pretend that it didn’t, but I know him better than anybody. He never took up with anybody after you left, not one single person. It was like he couldn’t trust anybody enough to let them close. And it made him a downright grumpy bastard.”
“I never meant for that to happen. I thought he would move on, get married. I thought it would be easier for him if I didn’t leave any ties.”
Nell sniffed. “Well, you were wrong.”
“Obviously.”
Nell let out a long breath and her shoulders seemed to relax. “So what’s it like being on TV?”
Ana laughed. “Not all it’s cracked up to be. That fight in the lash bar?”
“Episode eight, season twelve,” John called while filling out his paperwork.
Ana rolled her eyes. “I thought Dakota and I were—well, not friends, none of the women on that show even understand the meaning of the word ‘friend’ but I thought we understood each other. She started that weird, contrived argument with me because a producer told her it would get her more attention and more storylines that season. And they were right, it did. Me punching her in the face got a lot of attention, and the trips to the plastic surgeon, the reconstructive surgery on her nose, the lawsuit, they were all big plot points for her.”
“It was a pretty good punch,” Nell conceded, rubbing her chin.
“I let my temper get the better of me. She said something about my daughter. I just couldn’t let it go. And of course, they edited that part out, no one heard her making that awful comment about my Chloe having a learning disorder, so I looked like an unstable bully.”
“Nope, she went after your kids, she had it coming,” Nell reached through the bars and patted her shoulder. “That’s the line you don’t cross.”
Ana shook her head. “It was stupid of me. No matter what she said, adults don’t solve problems with their fists.”
She sent Nell an arch look, making Nell raise her hands. “Point taken.”
After a long pause, Nell asked, “What the hell is a lash bar?”
Ana burst out laughing, whacking her head against the bars. “Ow.”
That was how Ned found them when he walked through the jail door, two idiots behind bars, laughing on jailhouse cots, covered in scrapes and bruises. Ned stared at them both and shook his head. “What in the hell is wrong with you?”
“Are you asking me or her?” Nell asked.
“I haven’t decided yet.” He glared at Nell. “Mom and Dad never should have taught you how to talk. Clearly, you’re not meant to be around people.”
Ana snickered and tried to cover it with a cough. Ned turned and pinned her with a dark look. “And you.
“Easy,” Ana warned him.
“How do you keep getting into fights?” he demanded.
“Technically, in this case, I was punched first,” Ana insisted.
“It’s true. I punched her right in the face,” Nell said, nodding. “She didn’t even try to guard.”
Ana threw her arms up. “I didn’t see you coming!”
“Well, that’s your fault,” Nell told her.
John sighed from his desk. “You do know you have the right to remain silent, right?”
“Maybe the right, but not the wisdom,” Ned replied, turning to them. “You’re two grown-ass women. Use your damn words. I have a mind not to bail either one of you out.”
“That’s fine, John will just take me home with him later,” Nell said.
Ana looked to John, who sort of shrugged helplessly.
“Gah!” Ned scrubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t want to picture that!”
“I’m flattered bailing me out is even an option,” Ana said. “I’m sorry, for earlier.”
Ned shook his head. “No, I let my temper get the best of me. I said things that were…”
“Not wrong,” Ana told him. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
He nodded. “Why don’t
you show me this house of yours and we’ll see what we can do.”
“Really?” she gasped. “Does this mean you’re willing to work for me?”
Even the phrase put a sour look on his face. “No, it means that I have always wanted to work on Fishscale House, see it restored to its former glory. It’s one of the most interesting houses on the island and I have spent years watching it fall apart. It’s about the project, not you.”
She tried not to let that hurt her feelings, she really did. Then again, he didn’t mention that the house was falling apart all of those years while her husband owned it…so she guessed that was a wash.
“You’re not just trying to get me in a secluded location with power tools?” she asked, her brow arched.
“I could leave you here,” he retorted.
She smiled her best and brightest smile. “Let’s go see the house.”
Ned said very little as they walked the floors, surveying the damage that time and neglect had done to Fishscale House. He made notes on a very official looking clipboard and frowned a lot, which made Ana more than a little nervous. Having slept in the house the night before, she knew what to expect—the chipping paint, the water damage, the leaky windows. She wondered what her neighbors thought the house looked like inside now, having been sealed up for so long.
It was so strange to trail behind Ned, seeing him after all these years, to see all the changes and what was still the same, and not speak. It was like he had put a wall between them. Ned was scribbling, and frowned some more. The frowning was very disconcerting.
She sighed. She was going to have to get so creative with the Zillow photos to sell this place.
“So you’re not going to say anything about the fact that you went to school for this?” she said, as he jotted down his notes. “That you actually have a degree in restoring historical homes?”
He glanced up at her, dark brows raised. She added, “Dougie told me. He’s very proud of you. You could have said something this morning.”
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