Half Moon Harbor

by Donna Kauffman

  “I mean here on my docks. I’m quite certain that this property wasn’t actively for sale, as I’ve never put it on the market.”

  “You didn’t have to. The county did that for you.”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again. That accent of his, along with his easy charm, had likely gotten him out of more than one sticky situation, but after nine long years spent sitting between bereaved, feuding, and downright hostile family members as she determined if their dearly departed loved one’s assets were being properly toted up and dispersed, she’d become a pretty shrewd judge of character. There was more going on behind those Emerald Isle eyes of his than one might assume from the rest of the package.

  “Then there should have been some kind of notice regarding their change in plans and intent with regards to the property,” he said, more to himself than to her, “which I can assure you there was not.”

  She could see quite clearly that he spoke the truth as he saw it. The sale or even the possibility thereof had come as a shock to him, and not a small insult. It wasn’t any of her doing, but the flash of true hurt, of betrayal, she spied on his face gnawed at her nonetheless. Why had the town seen fit to do what they’d done? She didn’t know the history of the particular situation, or what his life had been like since he’d put down his own roots, or how the town perceived him. But she knew she didn’t want to be part of whatever conflict her purchase seemed likely to unleash.

  “I came here to establish roots, meaningful ones,” she said, realizing it was probably unwise to give too much, but seemingly unable to stop the floodgates once they’d opened. “I spent most of my life doing what was safe, what wouldn’t do me harm, and I was very good at it. Too good, really. I convinced myself that safe equaled happy. Only . . . it didn’t. Couldn’t.

  “Security is a great comfort, but it’s ultimately an empty one. I’ve watched—and helped—countless families going through some of their most challenging times, some torn apart by it, some united. Most of the time it was messy and hard, but . . . real—the bonds, the love, even the anger and sometimes hate. Legacies are not built simply from amassed assets, but from history, moments shared, memories created, futures dreamed of. It’s not hollow and it’s not separate and alone. All that means . . . something. It’s—I don’t want to be a bystander any longer, watching, assessing, assisting. I can’t do that any longer. I want—no, I need—to reclaim what is left of my family and make something that has meaning, then stand by it, no matter the risks. You have to believe me when I say that I’d never have knowingly intruded on or intentionally thwarted someone who is trying to do the same thing.”

  “So . . . what is it you’re saying then? That you’ll undo the deed? Literally?” He jerked his chin toward the papers clutched in her fist.

  “I don’t know that I could, even if I wanted to. And . . . to be honest, this is the right place for me. I’d pictured something different, and yet the moment I saw it, I knew it was exactly right in more ways than you can know or possibly understand. Or maybe you’re the one who would understand best. I meant what I said about honoring the history of this place. Even if I didn’t want to, I’d be a fool not to capitalize on it, so trust that if you don’t trust me. I plan to keep the integrity and history of it alive . . . because it’s smart and because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “So, that would a no then.”

  “Brodie—Mr. Monaghan—I don’t know what else to say. You’ve—your family—has managed to hold on to this entire place for a very, very long time, but when the last Monaghan walked away from here, however long ago that was, he—or she—had to know they’d abandoned the place. It’s fortunate you had as much left to reclaim as you did. From what I understand, the town could have divested itself of the burden at any time over the past several decades. I imagine if anyone had shown the slightest interest, the town council would have.”

  “Is that what estate attorneys do then? Dismantle the property of families?”

  She frowned. “No, that’s not what we do—what I did—and how do you know what I used to—” She looked down at the deed papers. He’d looked at them more closely than she’d realized. More going on behind those winking green eyes than it would seem. She looked back to him. “My previous occupation has nothing to do with this.”

  “Previous, is it? Other than when it provides you with the tools necessary to do exactly what you did, you mean? Dismantling my inheritance might not have been your intent, but it was, in fact, exactly what you did.”

  “I know it’s come as a shock. I can see you’re upset and I understand why. But I didn’t knowingly do this to you. I had no idea about you, any more than you had any idea about me. I thought the property was abandoned.” She didn’t want to hurt him any further, but needed him to be realistic. “Once you’ve had time to think it through, I think you’ll see that this could be a good thing. One less part for you to have to deal with, and something that can only bolster whatever it is you hope to do here.”

  “That’s something we’ll need to look into then.” He turned abruptly and headed back up the dock, glancing back when he reached the ladder down to the lower dock. “You coming?” He slapped his thigh, and Whomper, the traitor, took off toward him like a bullet.

  “Coming?” she repeated, her mind going to places it had absolutely, positively no business going.

  “Inside,” he clarified. “We can defishify ourselves and make a few calls. I’m sure this can all be sorted out.” Brodie hopped down the steps and turned to catch Whomper as the dog made the leap off the higher dock, trusting completely that he’d be caught. Brodie’s smile returned as he cradled the scruffy mutt in his arms, even as he winced at the smell and gave the dog a healthy scratch between his ears.

  “There isn’t anything to sort out,” Grace called, lifting the papers in her hand as proof, feeling ridiculous for being jealous of a damn dog.

  But Brodie had already turned and continued on his way to his boathouse.

  The boathouse he lived in—where he apparently walked around half naked. Only a hundred yards or so away from her boathouse. As that future reality set in, she also took note that his stride was confident, not angry and not worried like someone who feared he’d lost a part of what was his and meant to get it back by whatever means possible.

  Whomper was back on the dock, trotting happily at his side. Men. She should simply walk away, leave the two of them to each other, and get on with the business at hand, which was charting out the first steps she needed to take with her newly acquired property. Her new life. Her new future.

  Her new everything.

  But she wasn’t looking at her newly acquired future everything. She was still watching Brodie’s broad bare back and his very fine plaid pajama-bottoms-covered tush as he neared the point where the pier would take him around the corner of the boathouse and out of sight.

  He paused as he reached it and slapped his chest. Whomper immediately sprang upward, blissfully happy to once again be in those manly man arms, clasped to that equally manly man chest.

  Grace sighed, intending it to be one of disgust, but was forced to acknowledge it had been rather wistful, instead. She should head back to the bank, then the town municipal building, make absolutely certain that there hadn’t been some kind of small-town misunderstanding about the property, some hidden handshake deal or verbal agreement. Neither would hold up in court, but she didn’t have the time or need the frustration and financial drain of a potentially lengthy legal battle. Not to mention that regardless of Brodie’s personal standing in the community, she was certain that suing a member of one of her newly adopted town’s founding families was probably not the best way to go about introducing herself to her new neighbors.

  But there was also the part where she reeked of dead fish, was down to only one functioning shoe, and had a splinter in her palm that felt like she’d jabbed a needle into her hand and left it there.

  “Okay, so maybe I go talk to the half-naked Irishman
some more, get my dog back—or not,” she added darkly, “then go clean up before calling my architect, or my banker and the county clerk, depending on how well I do in convincing him this is all going to be a good thing.” Yeah. That’ll happen. Right after he pushes me up against the nearest wall, tears my clothes from my body, and has his very sexy Irishman way with me.

  She sighed again, not even caring that it sounded wistful and more than a little needy. She had other things that needed attention first. A whole long laundry list of them, which only began with figuring out how she was going to turn her centuries-old boathouse into a modern-day, functional inn. There was still Ford to consider and deal with. She didn’t even know where to begin there. He’d chosen to live a life of seclusion for very good reasons, and she doubted he was going to be all that excited, or even remotely interested, in reuniting with any part of his past. Even if that part was his only living relative. His own sister. But she was going to do whatever it took to at least get him to consider her plea. He might not need or want her in his life, but she needed him in hers. At the very least, he was going to understand how serious she was about reuniting what was left of their family.

  So, her poor, neglected libido was going to have to wait, as were her equally neglected and still uncomfortably stiff nipples. She watched Brodie disappear around the corner. I know he’d be damn good at making that ache go away. Oh so very, very damn good.

  Feeling more foolish by the second, she slid the deed papers back into her bag, slid the straps up on her shoulders again, and clomped unevenly down the pier, broken heel dangling from her fingers by the strap. She considered taking the other one off, but figured she was already risking splinters in the bottom of one foot, so she walked as gingerly as possible, wincing when she felt the expensive silk hose shred as it snagged on the uneven wood planking.

  She made it down the pier and around to the side of the boathouse that was built on land, noting with grudging approval the big picture windows he’d had installed facing out toward the harbor and bay beyond. She made a few mental notes, rethinking the northeast facing wall of her own building, then was equally surprised to see the big original panel door still in use as entrance and exit. She liked that, too, she decided. It was charming and unique and admittedly functional.

  She glanced up, and her gaze caught and held on the family crest signage that had been painted directly on the restored and freshly painted wood planking of the boathouse. The sign was done in a rich, emerald green with fancy gold and black trim. MONAGHAN SHIPBUILDERS ~ ESTABLISHED 1627, it announced in elegant black script with gold accents. She glanced over her shoulder at the main boathouse, which sat centered in the pocket of the harbor, and realized the sign was a smaller version of what had once been painted so proudly and elegantly on the side of that building.

  She looked back to his boathouse and noted that it had been completely restored, from shake roof to wood plank siding, and he’d mentioned the interior had been remodeled as well. She hadn’t gone through any of the rest of the property—until this morning anyway, and then she hadn’t made it farther than the docks that connected the boathouses together—so she wasn’t sure what else he might have accomplished, but he’d most definitely been busy.

  Her attention shifted to the heavy ship mast mounted on the dock nearby. A spar, she thought it was called, complete with lanyard ropes, and all the fittings, but sans sail and abbreviated in overall height. The wood gleamed, as did the brass accoutrements, and the ropes were new and neatly and perfectly knotted, or so it appeared to her, anyway. Her sailing knowledge was limited to what she’d picked up being around others who sailed from the same piers where she’d kept her scull and oars. But it wasn’t the ropes or the knots that held her attention. It was the plaque mounted where the beams formed a tee. On it was a stunning, hand-painted rendition of a three-masted clipper ship in full sail. Eighteenth-century model, she supposed, given the established date on the bigger sign on the side of the building.

  Hanging below the near side of the cross beam were three rectangular signs, connected by brass hooks, each one hanging beneath the next. The top sign, in the same elegant script as the one on the side of his boathouse, said BRODERICK MONAGHAN VII. The one under that read SHIPBUILDER, IRISHMAN, KEEPER OF THE FLAME. Her heart twinged at that last part. Underneath that, the final sign read BOATS BUILT BY HAND ~ INQUIRE WITHIN.

  Below the final sign dangled a smaller wood plaque, painted black with a beautifully rendered family seal or crest in the center. The crest was made up of a blue and gold flag with a knight’s head positioned above it. She assumed it was the Monaghan crest. Then she glanced back up at the hand-painted clipper ship, and noted the same crest was painted on a small flag that flew at the top of one of the masts. Wow. She couldn’t even imagine what it took to build something so majestic . . . and to think it had been Brodie’s own ancestors who’d made their legacy doing just that. She wondered what kind of boats he built or planned to build. Obviously nothing on so grand a scale as his ancestors’, so . . . what was his goal?

  She thought of her own goals, and how overwhelming it felt, launching herself into uncharted waters, trying to build something new while resurrecting the only part of her past that meant anything to her.

  Thinking about what Brodie faced, the weight of what he bore on his shoulders, of all who had come before him . . . made her own journey seem miniscule and a little ridiculous by comparison.

  She turned, looked back down the curve of the harbor to her boathouse. And yet, mine is no less important, no less meaningful a mission. In fact, any time she felt overwhelmed, which she imagined would probably be pretty much all the time, she only had to look out on all he had to accomplish to put her own to-do list in perspective.

  She smiled at the thrill that shot straight down her spine, the sensation comprised of equal parts anticipation and terror. She’d initially thought she’d build something brand new, completely original, thinking that was necessary to her new life plan. But as soon as she’d entered the old coastal town, she’d been drawn to its history, its heritage, and decided she wanted to blend old and new. She’d looked at old waterfront houses and even a few abandoned inns, wanting something with character, maybe with its own colorful history, where she could begin to build her own . . . and then she’d walked inside the boathouse right on the water, with a dock of its own, and something about it had called to a place deep inside her. Probably the same place that had pulled her to the Potomac River back in D.C. and to rowing. There was a specific kind of peace that she’d found only on the water, an inner serenity. The water had represented continuity. Security.

  She’d felt that same thing when she’d walked into the boathouse, then down the pier that extended into the harbor. In some ways, it couldn’t be more different from the river she’d spent so many hours on. But in all the ways that mattered, it had felt the same, standing on that particular spot, feeling physically hugged by the curve of the harbor behind her, and energized by the horizon that spread out in front of her, endless, hopeful, full of promise.

  She understood Brodie’s disappointment with the town for doing what they’d done, but she told herself that the loss of one boathouse wouldn’t diminish one iota the proud and bold legacy the Monaghans still laid claim to in Half Moon Harbor, and the entire Cove for that matter. She needed to make him understand that if anyone was going to co-opt even the tiny part of his heritage that she’d taken over, how fortunate he was that it had fallen to her understanding and careful hands, and not to some developer who might have simply torn it down and started over.

  She’d honor his ancestors’ intent and put her own stamp on the place. She’d bookend what he’d started. He’d see that for himself in time, and she could only hope he’d approve.

  She turned back to the wide plank door, smiling as she noted the throng of small white buoys hanging from the oversized handle, each banded with a different colorful stripe, or rather what once had been bright and colorful, but had cl
early seen their share of ocean action. Pot buoys, she knew they were called, for the lobster pots they marked all over the bay. They were a symbol she’d noticed hanging proudly on countless buildings and posts all around Pelican Bay and Blueberry Cove. Most noticeably, they were in the harbor area, so charming and true to the local fishing heritage.

  All in all, Brodie had made a really good start with his boathouse renovation, a fine beginning to the daunting task he had ahead. Well, it could do with a bit of landscaping, she thought. Some shrubbery, a flower garden to cheer up and soften the overwhelming masculinity of it all wouldn’t have been out of place, but what did she know from boatbuilding businesses?

  “About as much as you do about innkeeping,” she murmured under her breath. Not that he has to know about that.

  Chapter 3

  Brodie had left the large sliding door partially open, but Grace knocked on the plank closest to the gap just the same. No response. A small brass ship bell had been mounted to the frame of the door panel, but ringing it seemed a bit overkill since he was expecting her. She stuck her head inside, but didn’t see man or her traitorous beast. She did, however, see the remarkable transformation of the wide-open interior and eased inside to take a better look.

  She turned in a slow circle and took in the smart use of space, the corner work area, and the cypress planking used for the flooring. Original to the place, she knew, as her boathouse had the same. She’d been planning on replacing it, thinking the boards beyond salvation, but whoever had restored these had done a stunning job. The golden wood glowed with renewed warmth and a rich glossy finish. She made a mental note to ask him whom he’d used. Like he’d tell me. She sighed, hoping they could sort out their issues without involving anyone else—namely lawyers. Well, more lawyers.

  Still caught up in the structure of the place, she moved to the beautiful piece of circular stair ironwork that led up to the thoughtfully executed loft space running across about a third of the open-to-the-rafters interior space. Also cypress planking, she noted, looking up at the loft flooring, absently wondering where the ironwork had been done or if it was original to the old boathouse structure before the renovation. She stepped back and looked up, and noticed the black wrought iron continued across the open edge of the loft space, creating a simple, yet beautiful railing. So, it was new to the renovation, she thought, making another note to look into local tradesmen and see if it had been done by someone in the area.