Up to Me (Shore Secrets)

by Christi Barth

  “You said you wanted to brainstorm.” Gray whipped his head around as Piper spoke, surprised that she seemed to be backing him up. Good thing, too, since she gave a time-out to what had been shaping up into an epic fight. “Any idea, no matter how far-fetched or stupid or insensitive, gets at least a mention in a brainstorming session. Because we all know there is no secret room full of treasure to save you.”

  Ward chimed in with a half-shrug. “Gray’s idea isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

  “What if you made a pro/con list for it?” Casey added.

  Looked like the opinion tide had shifted. Yeah, Gray was the first one to urge Ella not to follow majority rule when it came to her life. He saw the blazing hypocrisy in hoping that, since her friends saw the reasoned logic in his suggestion, Ella would, too. Still, it would sure make things easier if she listened to him and his backup chorus of her own friends.

  Ella nodded. Crossed her arms over her chest. She looked ready to go a full nine rounds. “Okay. I’ll start a list. Con—the only reason that money exists is because my mother was impaled by a steel rod through her head. My father bled out in front of me. Every cent of that money stands for a drop of their blood spilled that night.” Ella planted her hands on her hips, the jut of her chin daring them to push her any further. “So forgive me if I can’t get past that to come up with any pros. I can’t rely solely on reason and logic. This goes deeper than that. Maybe I’ll have to accept it down the road. For now, I need to find another solution.”

  Yeah. There was an invisible line in the sand about the Mayhews, and Gray had knowingly stepped about a mile over it. No surprise she’d kicked his ass back across it. He wouldn’t apologize. Wouldn’t back down if she ever brought it up again. The idea was still valid. But he wouldn’t stay and beat his head against the metaphorical wall around her parents’ money, either. Fighting this particular fight got him nowhere. With a pang of regret for abandoning the other half of his sandwich, Gray made a production of looking at his watch. “I should go. I’m scheduled for a boat ride around the lake.” He pushed off the stool.

  Ella stopped him with a hand on his arm before he’d made it two steps. He considered shaking it off. They both clearly needed to shake off their mad before saying anything else to each other. But his mom had drilled better manners than that into him. Slowly, he turned to face her. And was surprised by the small, hopeful uptilt to her lips.

  “I’m sorry. You didn’t know my parents were off limits. I shouldn’t have exploded. If you have any other constructive suggestions based on your knowledge of the hotel industry, I’d be more than happy to take those under advisement.”

  A woman who didn’t hold a grudge. Who dropped her temper in a heartbeat, without sulking. Gray could hardly believe it. He took the olive branch. “I’ll think on it. I really do want to help.”

  She nodded in acknowledgement. “Remember, you’re meeting me for yoga later. No excuses.”

  “I’ll be there. But I plan to have plenty of excuses at the ready when it comes to standing on my head.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “I can’t thank you enough for making snacks for girls’ night,” said Ella. She felt a little guilty every time Joel helped her out. But not guilty enough to stop asking him. Or more to the point, his food was so delicious that it erased all memory of her guilt.

  “My bi-weekly paycheck is all the necessary thanks,” he joked as he whipped off his apron. Instead of his usual chef’s whites, he wore jeans and a plain white tee with the sleeves rolled up.

  Nope. She might live in a tower, but Ella refused to behave like an entitled princess. “Please. You stuck around an extra hour after your shift ended working on treats for us. That goes way above and beyond your job description. I appreciate it.”

  A clanging crash sounded from the depths of the kitchen. Pre-dinner prep was in full swing. Joel didn’t bother to comment. Just lifted his head to glare at the poor, butter-fingered sous-chef, who snapped out an apology. With the calm of a man in unquestioned control—and an authority that, frankly, Ella envied—Joel turned back to her.

  “Ella, this has nothing to do with a paycheck, and you know it. We’re friends.”

  Geez, she hated owning the hotel. Or maybe owning it wasn’t so bad. It was owning it combined with technically being the buck-stops-here girl that complicated things. As head chef, technically Joel reported to Eugene. Except that Eugene said he was more of a peer to Joel, and dumped his official supervision in Ella’s lap. Along with Eugene himself. The two of them were definitely self-starters, and didn’t need her help. If anything, they felt like family—the brother and uncle she never had. So she did her best to keep their roles very separate from their personal relationships. No matter how awkward—no, make that weird—it felt.

  “True. But I never want you to feel like I’m taking you for granted. It’s a tricky line to walk, with us being friends and employer/employee.”

  “Only if you let it be.” Joel ran his hand through his mop of dark curls. “Tell you what. To even things out, I’ll take you up on that mini-massage you offered, if you’ve got a break tomorrow. I carved up a whole lamb and tweaked something.” He thumped his shoulder with a wince.

  “Oh, no. Are you sure it can wait till tomorrow? I don’t want you to be in pain.” She fluttered her lashes down before looking up at him sideways. “Or to file a workers’ comp claim.”

  He winked. “Nice straddle of the line there, boss. Nah, I’m fine. I’ll slap an ice pack on it and grin and bear it. Besides, you don’t want your food to get cold. When are you going to learn to cook for yourself, by the way?”

  “Just as soon as I don’t have a Culinary Institute trained chef thirty feet from the steps to my bedroom. If anything, it’d be an insult to your great talent in the kitchen if I didn’t come to you with all my cooking needs.”

  “Stop buttering me up. I already made your food.”

  “What’ve we got?”

  Joel put another silver-domed plate on both serving trays. “I made you fried plantains with a garlic-mojo dipping sauce, manchego and spinach puffs, empanadas, shrimp ceviche, and avocados stuffed with lobster salad.”

  “Sounds delicious. And like it’ll go perfectly with the piña coladas I whipped up. Seeing as how even I can handle putting rum, ice and a mix into a blender.” She revealed the frosty glass decorated with a tiny orange umbrella she’d hidden behind her back. “I brought you one, as a thank you.”

  “For Christ’s sake, put that away.” Joel pushed her arm beneath the steel pass-through shelf separating the frenetic stove and prep area from the walkway to the dining room. “You think I want my sous-chefs to see me with something as girly and ridiculous as an umbrella drink? They’ll lose all respect for me.”

  She set the drink onto one of the two trays and lifted it. “Joel, you cooked your way through two tours in Afghanistan and earned a Purple Heart before coming back and graduating with honors from the Culinary Institute. Rumor has it you pulled the bullet out of your thigh with your own kitchen tongs. Trust me, everyone in this kitchen is in complete awe of you.”

  He lifted the other tray and pushed open the kitchen door for her. “Being a living legend requires careful maintenance of my image.”

  “So you don’t want the drink?” she asked as they walked without a sound on the thick Oriental rugs lining the hallway.

  “Of course I do. I’ll just take it once we off-load these trays up in your room.”

  “Then what? Big plans for your night off?”

  Both of them paused to nod and smile at an older couple laden with wine sacks and uneven gaits that attested to a long day of wine tasting. The woman let out a discreet hiccup as they passed.

  “Well, there’s the ice pack I mentioned,” said Joel. “I plan to get up close and cozy with that for half an hour. Then I was going to meet Ward and
Justin for burgers and at least one too many beers. Maybe knock on Gray’s door while I’m up here and see if he wants to tag along.”

  Ella set the tray on the floor, fished out her key and unlocked the door to her secret staircase. “Aren’t you missing something in that big plan?”

  “What?”

  She planted her hands on her hips. This issue had been tapping at her for months. “A woman. You never talk about women. Not dating them—not even hooking up.”

  “A gentleman never kisses and tells.” Joel pushed past her and up the stairs.

  Like she’d let him get away that easily. “I’m serious. When was the last time you were out with a member of the opposite sex on a Saturday night?”

  “When was the last time you were?” he shot back as he put his tray down on her coffee table/dining table/foot rest/good place to pile mail.

  Well. Dropping a manhole cover on her head couldn’t have shut down this line of inquiry any faster. “Point taken.” Although maybe, by this time next week she’d have a real date with Gray under her belt, and she could hassle Joel again from a position of sexed-up self-righteousness. Which made her wonder just how many positions Gray knew. He seemed pretty inventive so far.

  “I’ve got more than a decade on you, kid. I’m in a good place. You’re the one who’s too young to spend her nights locked up in a tower.” Joel kissed the top of her head. Ran a quick hand down her ponytail. “Think about having your next girls’ night in a bar.” He headed down the stairs, adding over his shoulder, “Where you can add men to the mix!”

  His voice mingled with the higher tones of Piper and Casey as they passed him on their way up.

  “So glad to see Joel here. Guess that means we won’t be stuck eating microwave popcorn and slicing tubes of raw cookie dough ourselves,” said Piper. She made it about two steps in and then froze. Casey plowed into her. They both landed on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.

  Ella giggled. “You two look ridiculous.”

  “You look...different.” Piper lay on the floor, gaping at her. Her comment stopped Casey’s swearing and turned her head to face Ella. Then Casey’s jaw dropped open, too.

  “Holy crap, what have you done?”

  Their reaction should be caused something epic and shocking. Like a nose piercing. Or a tattoo of a unicorn down her forearm. More than a little self-conscious, Ella snuck a peek at herself in the octagonal mirror by the door. “They’re just bangs. No big deal.”

  Piper rolled onto her knees. Good thing she was wearing yoga pants and not her customary short, tight skirt. “Cutting in bangs is always a big deal. If they look bad, it takes months of torture to grow them out. If I was considering bangs, I’d consult you guys first. I’d get Dawn’s opinion, too. Heck, I’d probably poll all the female visitors that came through the winery that day.”

  “Me, too,” Casey chimed in. “You can’t get enough opinions when it comes to changing your hairstyle.”

  “You haven’t changed your hairstyle since I met you,” Ella scoffed.

  “Because whenever I get a wild notion to change my luxurious locks, I crowd source. And listen to their collective wisdom.” With a smug smirk, Casey stroked her long braid, which hung almost to the small of her back.

  Now they were giving her a complex. Which stung, because Ella thought the bangs were sassy. She shuffled over in front of the mirror again. Stared a little longer. Fluffed them. Swept them to the right, and then to the left. And still thought they were sassy, damn it. “Do they look that bad?”

  Piper moved next to her, throwing an arm around her waist. “No. Not at all.”

  Casey crowded in on the other side. Cocked her head in assessment at all three of them reflected in the mirror for all of a second before declaring, “They’re adorable.”

  “So get off my back!” Annoyed, Ella stalked over to the table and began transferring plates to it from the trays. With probably more of a clatter and slam than either the plates or the table deserved.

  “You lucked out, this time.” Piper took the empty tray away and set it by the door. “Why didn’t you run this past the journal?”

  “I don’t have to let the entire town weigh in on every little decision I make,” she huffed out.

  “Since when?”

  Oh. Okay. This was her chance to be honest. She’d been hiding this from her best friends for some time now. Ella had worried that they’d tell her she wasn’t ready to fly solo again. And for all the input and support they’d given her, that was the one decision Ella knew had to be hers and hers alone. But she’d made the decision to pull back from the journal months ago. Made the decision to stand on her own two feet and wholly own her life again. The only thing she hadn’t decided was to tell all the people who loved her so much that it was time for them to pull back, too.

  Ella pulled a throw pillow off the blue and white striped easy chair. She sank into it and held the pillow against her stomach, bracing for their displeasure. Or hurt. Or anger. “For a while now.” And held her breath. Because these women were her only family now. Their approval meant a lot. Their disapproval would knock the air right out of her. But it wouldn’t change her decision.

  Casey threw herself onto the white sofa, arms splayed across the back. “It’s about time!”

  Not the words she’d expected to hear at all. Even in her relief, she had to question them. “What?”

  “You only needed us, the town, to help you for a little while after Disaster Day. Then the journal turned into more of a safety blanket. You didn’t need it. You just needed to know that it, that all of us, were there to lean on. That with your parents gone, there was still someone, something you could turn to in times of trouble.”

  “Then it became a habit. A bad habit. Which are the hardest to break.” Casey toed off her sneakers and sprawled out full length. “Like my putting my feet on the furniture. Bad habit, but one that’s far too comfortable to kick.”

  “It’s a white couch, Case,” Ella said, out of habit, for about the thousandth time.

  “And I’m wearing white socks. Don’t freak out,” Casey replied, also out of habit, for the other thousandth time.

  Okay, maybe Casey had a point. Habit, rut, whatever. She’d been mired in it for far too long. Ella wished someone had picked up an emotional sand wedge and whacked her out of it about a year ago. “Why didn’t you guys say something sooner?”

  Piper sat cross-legged on the floor. “Did you ever see someone take a security blanket away from a toddler? The screams, the tantrums, it’s like the world is ending. You have to wait until they decide to discard it themselves. We just had to wait it out until you were ready to give up your reliance on the journal.”

  Ella hated it when her friends ganged up on her with their rightness. It sucked all the wind out of her sails of righteous indignation. But they were, unquestionably correct in their assessment. Moving on now felt good. It felt right. However long it took was worth it, to be this clear-headed again and focused on the future. Able to fully focus, without any fog of grief anymore, on Gray. On how much fun they had together. On how his compliments made her feel like a strong, smart and sexy mashup of Wonder Woman and Helen of Troy. On how his touch his kiss, his taste flooded her with feelings too long forgotten.

  Piper tapped her on the knee. “Although, to be clear, we all use the journal from time to time. And I still say you should’ve reached out to at least a few people for something as epic as cutting in bangs.”

  “Duly noted.” Ella stood and crossed to the tiny kitchenette. Wished she could run an ice cube over her chest without anyone asking why. Tamped down all thoughts of Gray, because there was no place for being pantingly horny during girls’ night. Giving the pitcher on the counter a final stir, she said, “Anyone else ready for a drink?”

  “More than ready,” Casey groaned. “I had trouble
shaking Pierce tonight. He texted four times asking if we could have dinner. Even after I told him it was girls’ night.”

  Finally. Somebody else’s problem to focus on for a change. Ella speared cherries and pineapples with the tiny paper umbrellas before balancing them on the rim of the glasses. “Why’d you turn him down?”

  “It’s girls’ night.”

  “I know, but we do this all the time. Rescheduling wouldn’t have been a problem if you wanted a booty call.”

  “I didn’t.” Casey said it in the same don’t be such an idiot tone of voice she’d use to point out that yes, there are indeed seven days in a week and the sun is still yellow. “That’s the point. Pierce and I had date night last Thursday. We adhere to a very strict schedule. There’s no reason he should want to see me this week.”

  “Sounds like you’re the one who doesn’t want to see him. Cause I can think of lots of reasons he’d want to see you.” Ella waggled her eyebrows and framed the silhouette of an hourglass with her hands.

  “We’re not boyfriend/girlfriend. We’re very casual. Very regimentally casual.”

  Piper thwacked her with the pillow Ella had discarded. “That’s a lot of verys.”

  “Well, we’ve got a system.” Casey lobbed the pillow back. “It’s worked fine for almost a year. He shouldn’t mess with the system.”

  It was a messed-up system. But Ella thought she’d wait until Casey was lubricated with a few drinks to point out its inherent flaws. Right now, Casey’s aim with the pillow was a little too good. She handed out the glasses filled with frothy, almost frozen goodness.

  “Ooh, piña coladas!”