Driftwood Point

by Mariah Stewart

  “Thanks, Vanessa.” Lis stepped into the dressing room and changed. The dress floated like a cloud over her shoulders and her hips, and once zipped in the back, it fit like a dream. Lis didn’t look at the price tag. She didn’t care what it cost. The dress was hers.

  “How are you doing in there?” Vanessa asked.

  “It’s perfect.” Lis stepped out of the dressing room.

  “Wow, it is that. Turn,” Vanessa said, and made a twirling gesture with her index finger. “The fit couldn’t be better. It’s nicely fitted where it should be without being too tight. It’s lovely on you. It’s elegant, classy . . .”

  “Done.” Lis laughed. “I’ll take it.”

  “Excellent.” Vanessa beamed. “Easiest sale I made all day.”

  Lis removed the dress carefully—somewhat reluctantly because she loved the way it looked on her—and took it to the front counter, where Vanessa was waiting on another customer. Lis fell in line and took the opportunity to look at the jewelry under the glass.

  “This was great on you, Brooke,” Vanessa was saying to the customer who’d just handed over her credit card. “Is this for the rehearsal dinner?”

  “No, I’m covered there. This is for the reception at the art gallery tomorrow night,” the woman replied. “You’re going, right?”

  “Of course. Everyone’s going,” Vanessa said.

  “Even Jesse,” the customer told her. “He said the artist is the great-granddaughter of one of his clients, so he wanted to go.”

  “I heard the artist is from around here,” Vanessa continued. “Did you know her?”

  “I knew her brother, Owen. Adorable—and really a nice guy back then, if a bit of a player, but I haven’t seen him in years. I heard her work was really good, so I’m looking forward to it.”

  Vanessa completed the transaction and returned the credit card, then handed over the bag holding the purchases. “So I guess we’ll see you tomorrow, Brooke.”

  Brooke? Lis frowned. Brooke Madison? The town mean girl? Lis had been too many years behind her in school to have known her, but her meanness was the stuff of legends, though she hadn’t sounded so mean just then. Lis smiled to herself. She’d never heard her brother described as adorable before. A player, yes. Adorable, no.

  “Did you need anything else?” Vanessa turned her attention to Lis.

  “No, I think I’m— Oh! Shoes!” Lis cringed at the thought of wearing the gorgeous new dress with her old black heels. “Where can I buy shoes?”

  “If you’re looking for shoes to wear with this pretty little number, try right over there.” Vanessa pointed to the left side of the shop. “I don’t have a huge selection, but I do have some gorgeous high strappy sandals to wear with something like this.” She reached for the dress. “I’ll hold this here for you if you want to look.”

  “I do.” Lis made a beeline for the shoe section. It took her all of a minute to zero in on the exact pair. She took the display shoe back to the counter and asked Vanessa hopefully, “Size seven and a half?”

  Vanessa nodded. “I’m pretty sure.” She went into the back room and came back with two boxes in hand. “I have them in black and in a soft gray.”

  Lis tried on the gray. “Perfect.”

  “I love them. High enough to say it without screaming it, if you know what I mean,” Vanessa said.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  While Vanessa wrapped Lis’s dress and shoes, she chatted. “So what’s the occasion?”

  “Big night tomorrow night,” was all Lis said.

  “Lucky guy.” Vanessa smiled.

  “Maybe.” Lis paid in cash and gathered up her bags. “Thanks. I’m glad I stopped in.”

  “Me, too. Come by again if you’re in town.”

  “I’ll do that. I’ll be around for a while.”

  Lis all but whistled on her way back to her car. She had, in fact, wanted to knock the socks off Alec Jansen. She just hadn’t been aware of it until she put on that silk dress and zipped it up.

  She was still in a happy frame of mind when she reached the island, but she frowned when she pulled around to the side of the store to park her car. An unfamiliar SUV, the color of dried mud, occupied the space she’d been using and had come to think of as hers. Gathering the bag she’d packed in the apartment and the one containing her new purchases, Lis went in through the back door.

  “Gigi?” she called out.

  When there was no answer, she dropped what she was carrying and went into the store. She found Ruby deep in conversation with a man whose back was to Lis.

  “Gigi, I’m back,” Lis told her.

  “’Bout time.” Lis’s brother, Owen, turned and stood at the same time. “How long did it take you to just pack up a few things?”

  “Not as long as it took you to get your ass back to the island.” Lis threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Where the hell have you been?”

  She stood back and took a good, long look. Owen was deeply tanned, his dark hair showing some natural highlighting from the sun he’d obviously spent a lot of time in.

  “Been around. Alaska. Australia. Costa Rica. New Orleans.” Owen gave her one last squeeze, then let her go.

  “Doing what?”

  “Having adventures.” He pulled out a chair for Lis and she sat.

  “Did you know he was coming today?” Lis asked Ruby.

  “Not till he walked in that door, big and bold. Near gave me a heart attack. For a minute, I thought he be my brother John, come back from the dead.” Ruby’s hand fluttered over her heart. “Spittin’ image, I swear.”

  “Was this your brother John the pirate?” Lis asked.

  “No pirates on my side,” Ruby all but harrumphed. “Now, on my Harold’s side, there was tell of some shady sailors.”

  “That’s you, Owen. The shady sailor,” Lis teased.

  “Speaking of sailors, where’s Uncle Eb’s boat?” Owen asked.

  “Down to Ellison’s boatyard, where it belongs,” Ruby told him.

  Owen raised a questioning brow. “What’s it doing down there?”

  “Gigi traded the boat to Alec Jansen in return for work he did for her,” Lis explained.

  “What kind of work was worth a skipjack?” Owen’s eyes, green like his sister’s, narrowed with suspicion.

  “The lot of you,” Ruby exclaimed. “Peas in a pod. One more suspicious than the other. You, Owen, get on up and I’ll show you what kind of work be worth a skipjack.” She pointed to Lis. “You can wait out here, take care of anyone who stops by.”

  Lis watched in amusement as Ruby herded her big, strapping brother into the living quarters.

  She wandered around the store, stopping to straighten a shelf here and there. She took her bag and her new dress and shoes upstairs to hang in her closet, then came back down and hopped up onto the wooden counter to wait for Owen and Ruby to make their way back. She had no doubt that her brother would be as impressed as she’d been with the work Alec had done to turn unused space into comfortable and modern rooms for Ruby, and she was just as certain that Owen would be as embarrassed that it had taken a stranger to recognize Ruby’s needs and to ensure her health and safety.

  She could hardly believe her brother was there. The proverbial rolling stone, Owen came and went as he pleased, and had since he was eighteen.

  “So what do you think?” she asked him when his tour was completed and he and Ruby returned to the store.

  “I think it’s lucky for all of us that Gigi has people looking out for her. I owe Jansen a whole lot of thanks for this.” He leaned against the counter and added, “He’s welcome to the skipjack and anything else he sets his sights on.”

  “He did a beautiful job, that’s for sure. Gigi, did you tell Owen about the cottage?”

  “What about the cottage?”

&nbs
p; Lis proceeded to fill him in on her plans, and Alec’s part in helping her determine how viable those plans might be.

  “Sounds like Alec has more in his sights than Eb’s boat,” Owen noted.

  “He’s interested in the island and concerned about preserving what’s here.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see what he’s really interested in.” Owen turned to Ruby. “Say, if Captain Walt’s is still open and serving the best rockfish on the bay, what do you say I take you both out for dinner to welcome me home?”

  “Dinner suits me fine, but I’ve got a taste for Emily Hart’s crab cakes,” Ruby told him.

  “Mrs. Hart is still doing her thing?” Owen looked surprised.

  “She is indeed,” Ruby assured him.

  “Does she even have a restaurant license?” Lis asked.

  “No one be needing a license to cook in their own kitchen and serve at their own table.”

  “I’m pretty sure you do if you’re charging for the food,” Lis told her.

  “Yeah, the board of health might disagree,” Owen chimed in.

  “Emily Hart been serving up for folks every Tuesday and Friday nights for more years than either of you been alive. Never heard tell of anyone ever having a problem with what came out of her kitchen.”

  “Which is probably a good thing for Mrs. Hart,” Owen said. “If she doesn’t have a license, chances are she didn’t bother with liability insurance, either.”

  “You hush and go change into something respectable. Those ripped-up shorts be fine for the beach, but not for being seen in public.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” A chastised Owen headed for the second floor, winking at his sister as he passed.

  “And you, Lisbeth, you go on and get everything out of your car. You be driving. These old legs of mine don’t reach high enough to climb into that big old thing your brother’s got parked out there.” Ruby placed her large black purse on the counter.

  Not for the first time, Lis wondered how that small woman could carry a purse that looked to weigh almost as much as she did. God only knew what she was carrying around with her.

  “Brush your hair before we go, Lisbeth. You be looking like you drove all the way from New Jersey with your head out the window . . .”

  EMILY HART’S WHITE clapboard house was a mile down the road from the general store. Built in 1883 by the grandfather of Emily’s late husband, Phillip, it was one of only a few houses on the island that was two stories and the only one with any true Victorian touches. The porch was wide, wrapped from front almost to the back of the house on one side, and was framed with elaborate gingerbread trim. Several rocking chairs, set out in groups of two and three, were placed on the porch for diners who liked to relax in the soft bay breezes after dining on nights when the mosquitoes weren’t biting. Inside, the dining room was large and formal, with a table that could seat ten, more with the leaves added. Diners would be seated with whomever else had shown up that night. Emily, who was seventy-seven years old, took no reservations, had no set menu, served one sitting per night at seven on the dot, only took cash, and offered no alcohol. If all the chairs were taken when you arrived, you were turned away. You ordered what she cooked that day—which was whatever her nephew Pat had brought in from the bay—and if you wanted beer or wine, you brought it with you along with the glasses you’d drink from.

  Emily had a set of very fine crystal wineglasses that no one ever drank from. Including Emily.

  “Well, look at you, Ruby Carter.” Emily’s eyes lit when Owen and Lis followed Ruby into the dining room. “You got that boy of yours and your girl with you. Glad you brung ’em to see me.” She patted Owen on the back. “Got soft-shells tonight, big guy. Rockfish, too.”

  “I don’t know that I can choose between your soft-shelled crabs and your rockfish, Mrs. Hart.” Owen held a chair out for Ruby. “That might be asking too much.”

  “Well, boy, lucky for you, you don’t have to choose.” Emily turned to the five others who were already seated at the table. “That there joining you is Ruby Carter. She owns the general store up this side of the drawbridge. That be her great-grandchildren, Owen and Lisbeth. These nice folks here at the table be the Hawkins family, all the way from Ohio.”

  There was a chorus of Nice to meet you’s and How are you’s, So you live here’s, and What brings you to Cannonball Island? before the two families retreated back into the sanctuary of their private conversations.

  “This is so pretty. The white-lace tablecloth, the pretty china . . .” Lis said. “It’s just the way I remember it.”

  “The jelly glasses for water,” Owen murmured.

  “You mind your manners, Owen Parker,” Ruby chastised even as her lips fought a smile.

  “If I’d known we were going to come here for dinner, I’d have stopped at Miller’s for a bottle of wine when I came through town,” Lis said.

  “I’m more a beer guy myself,” Owen told her. “Last time I was home, I had some of that MadMac beer that Clay Madison and his partner are brewing. Good stuff. I think I’ll run over to St. Dennis after dinner and pick up a six-pack or two.”

  “Been a tea drinker all my life,” Ruby said. “Never did see a reason to fuzz my brain. Life can confuse your thinking all on its own.” She poked Owen with a slightly bent finger. “How long you be sticking around this time?”

  When Owen failed to reply, Lis kicked him lightly under the table.

  “Owen?” Lis poked him with her foot. “Gigi asked how long—”

  “I heard. I’m trying to think how to answer.”

  “Was the question too hard for you? ’Cause we can rephrase it . . .” Lis rested her arms on the table.

  “Actually, it is,” Owen said slowly. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t thinking about coming back for a while, but something got into my head about this place and I just felt like I had to come home.”

  “Was that something my art exhibit?”

  “I wanted to come home for that, of course. But it was more than that. It just felt like it was time.”

  “Time for what?” A prickle had gone up Lis’s spine. She hated when Owen talked like that. He’d been doing it since he was a child. “Were you worried about Gigi’s fall?”

  “That not be it,” Ruby said almost unperceptively.

  “At first that’s what I thought, but it doesn’t feel like that. Oh yeah, Gigi told me about her fall, and I’m real grateful that she was found when she was and that she’s all right. But this isn’t about that. It doesn’t feel like that.”

  Ruby nodded and exchanged a long look with Owen.

  “I just felt like I needed to come home,” he said. “That something important was waiting for me here. I can’t explain it better than that.”

  “Don’t need more explaining,” Ruby told him. “Sometimes things just be what they be.”

  “What would be important enough to make you want to stick around?” Lis asked.

  “Don’t know yet.” Owen shrugged.

  “So what have you been doing?” Before he could offer a glib response, Lis added, “And we don’t want that nonanswer, ‘Having adventures.’ ”

  “Hey, I’m all about adventure.”

  When Lis made a face, he said, “Okay, for a while I was fishing in Alaska. Then it occurred to me that I really hate the cold. A guy on the boat with me was from Australia. He was going back and talked me into going with him. His family owned a cattle ranch, so I did some ranching for a while. Fixed fences. Looked for lost cattle. Didn’t stay there very long, but it was a good experience.”

  “And Costa Rica?”

  “Surfing and diving, mostly. I hooked up with a salvager—guy I knew in college. Ran into him on the beach down there one day. His company was doing a salvage operation on a ship that went down off the coast, and they needed one more guy on the diving team.”

 
“Small world,” Lis noted.

  “Really. I hadn’t seen Jared Chandler in ten years. Then all of a sudden, there he was. So yeah. Small world.” Owen fell quiet for a moment. “You know, I’ve always liked to dive. Never occurred to me that I could make a living from it. Funny how it all worked out.”

  “How did it work out?” Lis asked.

  “Long story short, Jared offered me a job. His company’s salvage operation is going to be working on a ship that sunk out there in the bay about two hundred years ago.”

  “Going to take another hundred years to bring it up,” Ruby said. “Bay be busier than a beehive in July. How you figure to bring up a ship around all the crab traps and oyster beds?”

  “Well, I guess that’s for Jared to work out.”

  “Did you take the job?”

  “I did, Lis. I don’t know what led me back here, but it seems now I have a reason to stay. At least for a while. We’ll see what comes next.”

  “You were always creepy about stuff like that.” Lis couldn’t help herself. She had to say it. “You and cousin Maryclaire. Always had these creepy feelings that this or that was going to happen. And sooner or later, something always did.” She turned to Ruby. “And you, too, Gigi. You always know stuff before it happens. You don’t always give it away, but I know you always know.”

  Ruby smiled.

  “You’re just jealous because you don’t have the eye.” Owen seemed to almost gloat.

  “I don’t want ‘the eye.’ I don’t want to know what’s going to happen before it does. I like being surprised.”

  “I don’t always know what’s going to happen.” Owen turned to Ruby. “But she’s right about you, Gigi. You always know stuff you don’t talk about. You never seem to be surprised about anything.”

  “Surprises be overrated sometimes,” was all Ruby said.

  “Well, speaking of surprises, how surprised were you when you were asked to exhibit in the new art center?” Owen turned back to his sister.

  “Very surprised. For one thing, I didn’t know about the gallery—didn’t know there was one.”

  “Just goes to show how far and wide your fame as an artist has spread.”